


Mercenary

by BootsnBlossoms, Kryptaria



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Mercenaries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-26
Updated: 2013-04-07
Packaged: 2017-12-06 14:27:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 66,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/736700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BootsnBlossoms/pseuds/BootsnBlossoms, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kryptaria/pseuds/Kryptaria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five years ago, Commander James Bond of Her Majesty's Royal Navy left England in disgrace, escaping a court martial -- and what should have been a promising career in MI6 with Alec Trevelyan, his oldest friend.  He becomes a mercenary, selling his military expertise to the highest bidder, though not once does he act against England or her interests.</p><p>Now, new intelligence has possibly located Bond in the United States, and Alec is tasked with the mission to bring him back to MI6. But to do so will require a very unique type of field operative -- one Bond will never suspect.</p><p>Enter Aidan Green, codename Q.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by these photos: http://bit.ly/10bgoL5
> 
> As always, thanks and love to our team of betas and cheerleaders, in alphabetical order: Jennybel75, Mitaya, Reluctantabandon, Snogandagrope, and Stephrc79! And thanks to Hedwig-dordt, Jennybel75, and Pati79 for keeping us supplied with gorgeous inspirational photos.
> 
> Those photos can be found on Tumblr. Follow us at:  
> bootsnblossoms.tumblr.com  
> kryptaria.tumblr.com
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> ~~~

**Thursday, 31 January 2013**

The grainy black and white photo was from a retasked surveillance drone. Two men, incongruously in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by rocks and not much else. The one looking up at the camera had an empty, round face. Image enhancement had removed the lens flare from his glasses, revealing small eyes, squinted against the desert sun. He was rotund and squat, wearing a button-down dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Even in black and white, it was obvious that the shirt was soaked with sweat.

Alec Trevelyan clicked and dragged the magnifying box away from him. Bean Counter, the man had been codenamed, for lack of anything better to call him. But he wasn’t Alec’s target.

The other man was smarter. He’d ducked and pulled a fold of a desert camo jacket over his head, tenting the fabric to obscure his physique. The digital camo confused the image enhancement software, leaving him with an array of several outlines tentatively drawn by the computer. He could’ve been a swimmer or body builder.

But there was a scar, barely visible where the edge of the jacket had slipped aside: a glossy white burn on the back of his neck. And at least one of the body-outlines could have been right... Alec took a deep breath and flexed his hand on the mouse, pulling at similar scars on his own hand.

“It could be him,” he finally told M, looking across the desk at her. “Scar’s right. Build...” He snorted and sat back in his chair. “Could be. You’re not going to catch him with a drone. He’ll hear it coming.”

“And he’ll neutralise any direct surveillance we send after him,” she answered, fixing a fierce scowl not on Alec but on the large secondary display hanging on the wall by her desk. “We can’t take the chance of losing him again. What the bloody hell he’s doing in America, though...”

“Training, most likely,” Alec said at once. “From Arizona to Texas all the way up to Montana, the country’s empty. You could build a bloody army out there and no one would notice. Hell, half the locals would join up just for the fun of it.”

“Brilliant. Training for what?” M demanded. “Is he coming back here?”

“He’s never moved against the UK,” Alec pointed out quickly, feeling a twinge of nervousness. “Never moved against the Commonwealth or any of our allies.”

“Money talks, 006. Every man has his price.” She turned her hawk-sharp eyes on him. “You were his best friend. You’re the only man alive who knows him.”

“We wouldn’t be here —”

“If the Admiral hadn’t wanted a scapegoat. Yes, thank you, 006. I’m well aware of that,” M snapped. “What’s done is done. He’s run loose for five years now. People are getting nervous. It was one thing when he was just another bloody gun for hire, but if he’s assembling an entire company, we want to know. Ideally, we want him _back_.”

Alec looked up at the display, keeping his expression carefully neutral. Where was the line between a friendship abandoned five years ago and loyalty to one’s country? The two oaths should never have come into conflict.

“I won’t be able to bring him in,” he finally said, turning back to M. She was staring at him as if she could read his thoughts. Hell, maybe she could. If anyone could, it would be her. “He’d never trust that I’m not still working for you.”

“But you’d be safe,” she pointed out.

“If I wanted safe, I would’ve become a grocer,” he answered dryly. “In this case, ‘safe’ means I’d be knocked out and dumped at some American hospital with a note reading ‘Return to MI6’ pinned to my chest. I don’t fancy an intercontinental flight just for that.”

“Anyone else we send will come back to us in far worse condition.”

“You’ve sent outsiders. A merc to catch a merc, you said, right?” he challenged.

Her jaw tightened. “I’m not going to test his patriotism by sending one of our people against him. And I’m certainly not going to send a Double O after him. He’ll sniff out another killer a mile away.”

Alec hesitated before he leaned forward, moving her hideous bulldog statuette out of the way. “You could let him go,” he said softly. “Let _this_ go. He’s not a threat. Let him play warlord in Africa or South America or the Far East. Hell, take advantage of it. You have in the past.”

“He’s mine, 006,” she insisted. “Five years ago, I approved _two_ new field agents for hire. I got one. And now, I want the other.”

“You are a fucking obsessive, controlling bitch.”

“That’s fucking obsessive, controlling bitch, ma’am,” she corrected bluntly.

Alec leaned back and grinned. “Right, ma’am.”

“So? You’re his best friend. How do we bring him in, if not with you?”

“Bait.”

 

~~~

 

Alec usually avoided Technical Services Section like the plague. Before a mission, he’d go down to get his kit, along with a tedious lecture on how not to abuse MI6 property. Afterwards, he’d usually sneak down around three in the morning to drop off a half-finished equipment loss record. Between missions, he never ventured there at all, to avoid provoking an impromptu scolding from any of the quartermasters or from Major Boothroyd himself, section leader.

So it was with an unusual edge of nervous awareness, better suited for field ops in hostile territory, that Alec made his way down to sublevel two just before five in the evening, when hopefully Boothroyd would be done for the day. Alec used every evasive trick he knew, from taking the fire escape stairs instead of the lifts to easing his way from one room to another, rather than walking directly to his target.

No, not his target. His _operative_. And wasn’t that just a fucking role reversal?

The retrieval operation was his to coordinate and run in all ways, except for actually _doing_ the mission. He couldn’t help but feel awkwardly guilty about how this had all turned out, but there was nothing to be done about it. M gave the mission a ‘go’, and now it was up to Alec to pick up the pieces and try to avoid any unnecessary deaths — a rare situation for a man who was authorised to kill at need.

Most of the computer techs were set up in cubicles or group workstations according to some esoteric rule understood only by Danielle, chief of Technical Services’ IT group. A very few, though, had private offices, perhaps on the theory that uninterrupted work allowed them to be more productive.

Alec stopped outside one of the doors. He glanced up at the red light over the door and typed in his ID code. A swipe of his thumb over the print reader opened the door with a loud click. He pushed it open and entered the small office, hoping he wasn’t about to get this particular technician killed.

According to his dossier, Aidan Green was twenty-three, though he could’ve passed for five years younger. He stared over his monitor in surprise, hazel eyes wide behind his glasses. He had dark hair that looked like he had a cat for a stylist and the sort of fine bone structure usually reserved for half-starved fashion models.

He was perfect.

Green’s eyes narrowed almost immediately, scanning Alec, gaze darting from Alec’s nearly empty hands to where his weapon would be holstered. “Lost, agent?”

Alec closed the door and reengaged the switch, securing the locks. “Priority assignment, Green,” he answered, walking to the desk. He noted the way Green quickly clicked his mouse, presumably closing out whatever he’d been doing. Pleased that the boy understood basic security, Alec set the tablet down next to the keyboard. The office was barely a cupboard and lacked a guest chair, so Alec sat down on the edge of the desk instead. The steel frame creaked in protest.

“From a field operative?” Green asked with disbelief and annoyance in equal measure. “What could you possibly have that would be of interest to me?”

Security awareness and balls. A little knot of tension loosened in Alec’s chest. So far, so good. “Not quite a field operative,” he answered. “Alec Trevelyan, 006.”

Green sat a little straighter, eyes falling to the tablet. “Operatives in the Double O Programme don’t have the authority to requisition services from Senior IT Analysts.” But he reached out and tapped the tablet, staring suspiciously at the lock screen. “Unlock code?”

“Use your access card,” Alec said, glancing at the badge clipped to his shirt. Green was dressed in the informal MI6 uniform of a dress shirt, tie, and trousers. Nice enough clothing, but the body underneath was distressingly thin, as if he skipped meals. In Alec’s experience, most computer geeks tended towards either the unhealthily thin or excessively fat, with very little middle ground.

Green scoffed. “Not for the tablet, genius. I’m fully aware of the reputation and, worse, the records of most Double O’s. I’m not doing anything for you until I know who authorised you to bother me while I’m neck deep in a Priority Two assignment.”

Alec couldn’t hide a grin; Green might well survive after all. He picked up the tablet and unlocked it with his passcode; it was his issued tablet and he’d already logged in earlier. He verified that only one file was open and dropped the tablet back on the desk. “Priority One mission. Operative retrieval, possible hostile.”

Green scanned the file, eyes darting as he read the text at an impossible speed. He set it down, one long, thin, finger tapping the glass as he did something on his own computer, then picked up the tablet again. His forehead wrinkled when he finally looked back up at Alec.

“I’m counter cyber-intelligence. I’m not a field operative.” He pushed the tablet aside and folded his arms. “Fill in the blanks, please.”

Alec considered a simple, clean intel briefing, but that would reveal nothing of Green’s personality. He’d skimmed the mission summary, and wisely hadn’t tried to open the detailed supplementary files — though Alec _did_ wonder what he’d done on his own computer.

Of course, Alec could simply pull rank; most people at MI6 tended to fold or run for cover when a Double O started shouting. Instead, he put on his best charming smile, flattened a hand on the desk, and leaned a bit closer. “Why don’t you ask me what you’d like to know?” he invited.

“Is the target a cyber-terrorist? Is that why there isn’t a name?” Green asked, a flicker of excitement in his posture as he leaned forward a bit, subtly mirroring Alec’s body positioning. Alec hid a grin at that, wondering if it was practiced or instinctive.

“He’s adept with computers, though nothing special. His skillset is primarily in all facets of combat operations and command. Everything from logistics to mission planning to sniping.”

Green frowned. “What _exactly_ do you need me for, then? How is my very specific skillset going to be put to use?”

“We can’t get close to him. We’ve been tracking him for five years. Every time he catches a whiff of us, he disappears,” Alec said, hiding the frustration in his voice. “He knows us. You’ve heard of designation 007?”

“That’s a myth,” Green said at once. “There hasn’t been a 007 since World War II. The number’s reserved because of superstitious idiots who think it’s lucky.”

“It’s his, or it was supposed to be. Five years ago, he was hired as a Double O agent.”

An uncomfortable silence settled in the office as Green sat completely still, staring at Alec with a cool, evaluating gaze. “I suppose I’m his type?” he finally asked bluntly. “Is it physical or personality?”

Startled, Alec sat back, asking, “All right. How’d you come to that conclusion?” The answer to that question wasn’t even in the file.

“You have absolutely no need of my particular skill set. I’m not a red shirt — there aren’t many people who can do what I do. I may not have a lot of training, but I have some. Enough for a trained operative to spot me eventually. So it must be something else. Something less quantifiable.” Green tipped his head, watching Alec’s reaction carefully; fortunately, Alec was very good at what he did. If he could fool Psych, he could easily hide his thoughts from Green, no matter how clever he was with computers. “You must know him very well, to be the one to choose me for the assignment.”

Maybe _too_ clever. Alec debated for a moment before he nodded; he’d need the kid’s trust for this sort of mission. “We grew up together. We were in the Royal Navy together. We were supposed to be here together.”

Green seemed to relax slightly, nodding. “I have absolutely no training for something like this. What makes you think I can bring him back?” Green held up his hand as Alec opened his mouth to answer, shaking his head. “That’s not a rhetorical question. I’d like to know what would be expected of me, and what particular abilities you think I possess that would be of any use here.”

“James has... peculiar morals,” Alec said thoughtfully. “For the last five years, he’s been a mercenary and assassin, but he hasn’t once moved against Britain’s interests or our allies. We know of two jobs he’s turned down and suspect three others — high-profile, lucrative targets. All of them innocents.”

“And you’re certain he’d regard me as an innocent?” Green demanded. “Even when he finds I’m MI6?”

“You can truthfully say you’ve never killed. You’ve never issued a kill-order. You’ve never supported a kill-mission,” Alec said.

Green chuckled. “You’re saying I ooze innocence? Sorry. I don’t know if that’s a necessarily a compliment in our business.” Then Green paused, casting a quick look at his computer before meeting Alec’s gaze again. “I’m not gay,” he said carefully.

That could be problematic, but if Green was as clever as he seemed, he’d find a way around it. “Physically, you and three others here match his preferences. Two of them are in Accounting, and one’s the girl who runs the coffee kiosk at the visitor’s entrance. You’re the most qualified for this.”

“How long?”

“We think we know where he is right now. We can have you onsite in America in twelve hours. The closest I’ve ever got to him was seven and a half hours behind,” Alec said, unable to entirely hide the bitterness. Seven hours and thirty-nine minutes, to be precise, according to the CCTV feed in the hotel lobby. DNA traces in the hotel room were a match. The shower had still been damp, the bed still unmade.

“That’s not what I’m asking,” Green said impatiently. “How long would I be stuck in America?”

“How long will it take you to convince him to come back to us?” Alec countered.

“I’m not the one who says I can,” Green pointed out. “Your argument so far is that I’ve never killed someone and am his kind of pretty. What are we talking about? Days? Weeks?”

Biting back his irritation, Alec answered, “There’s no way to know. James _wants_ to come back — or he did, five years ago. He has reason not to trust the military, and we’re Ministry of Defence. Hell, if you can’t persuade him, get him to agree to meet with me and I’ll do it. He needs to know his name’s been cleared — that he can come back home.”

“I have a cat,” Green said, raising an eyebrow.

Alec stared at him. Then, slowly, he grinned. “I know just the cat-sitter. She loves animals.”

 

~~~

 

Alec held open the door to M’s office and gestured his operative — _his operative_ — inside. He’d had to deal with stranger logistical challenges than a random cat before. Hell, he’d done a hostage rescue that involved two goddamn rabbits. One cat wasn’t going to stop him bringing James back to England, where he belonged.

“We’re ready to move, ma’am,” he told M as he joined Green at the desk. “Just a few minor hurdles to overcome.”

M never looked away from Green. “You understand the mission parameters?”

“Thoroughly, ma’am,” Green answered, gaze steady, surprising Alec a bit. Not a hint of nervousness about him. That could work in his favour, or it could tip James off.

“Very well. The mission is authorised. No limits, gentlemen,” M said. “I want him back alive and in good health. All other considerations are secondary — though do try not to start a war with America while you’re there, Green,” she added dryly.

“Write that down,” Alec advised.

“Does a cyber-war count?” Green asked with a raised eyebrow. “There is fun to be had from within America’s networks while I’m there, if you like.” His expression was completely neutral — Alec couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not.

“Oh, good lord, not another one of you,” M said, fixing Alec with a glare. “Keep him in line, or I’ll give you both to the CIA.”

“They have an excellent retirement plan,” Alec said, grinning.

“But horribly leaky firewalls,” Green groused.

This time, the glare was for both of them. “Tanner,” she said, stabbing a finger at the intercom.

The door opened and Bill Tanner, M’s chief of staff, entered. “Ma’am? 006,” he added, casting a suspicious eye at Alec and his operative.

“Operation Resurrection is go,” she said. “Agent — What are we calling him, 006?”

Alec glanced at Green. “If he survives, we can promote him to quartermaster. Q?”

Except for the tightening of his hands, given away only by the increasing whiteness of his knuckles, Green didn’t react. “That would be suitable,” he said calmly.

“Got that, Tanner?” M asked.

“Yes, ma’am. Anything else?” Tanner looked at Alec and Green.

“Just a personal favour, M,” Alec said smoothly. “Since we all know how important this is.”

M’s eyes narrowed. “What’s that?”

Alec grinned. “I hope you’re not allergic to cats.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Friday, 1 February 2013**

It was only the vision of getting out of that batcave of an office and into the TSS quartermaster programme — and some heavy duty narcotics — that got Aidan on the plane.

 _Not Aidan_ , he corrected himself, wondering if it were possible for his nails to be prised from his hands by the simple act of gripping armrests too hard. _Q._

Q looked down at his feet, running through every complex bit of programming that had been on his mind lately, trying to distract himself. Without a computer on hand to type, however, the attempt was a futile one. So he turned his thoughts to the mission at hand.

He _knew_ the moment Trevelyan walked into his office that he was going to be asked to do something like this. Counter cyber-terrorism was fun, and as essential to keeping England safe (if not more so) than the type of work the operatives did, but it came with certain stigma. People like Trevelyan and even M couldn’t see the manoeuvrings on the chessboard or control the pieces the same way they did with political figureheads and strategic assassinations. They knew what Aidan did was important, but without being able to visualise or even have a hand in it, his work never achieved the same level of reverence that shooting someone in the head did.

 _Don’t be bitter,_ he told himself, swallowing back bile as the plane shook with minor turbulence.

But this? This gave him a chance to escape the tiny confines of his sunless cupboard and go to where he could get his hands on more than just a keyboard. He could do some work in R&D, run some agents, have some fun.

Of course, there was the downside of having to win over a mercenary. Just because he only killed bad guys didn’t mean that he was a good person. In fact, knowing that the 007 designation had been set aside for this man frankly alarmed Aidan. _Bad arse_ probably didn’t begin to cover it. Not to mention the fact that Alec had frowned when Aidan had told him that he wasn’t gay. Obviously, some level of seduction had to be employed.

Not that Aidan couldn’t play the part. Like eighty per cent of uni students, he’d done his fair share of experimenting, only to realise he had a type — a typically selfish, arrogant type. And because he was perfectly content to date nice, normal, considerate, intelligent women, he’d thought he’d left that part of his life behind. Now, he hoped he could entice the former Naval commander back without actually having to sleep with him.

The plane hit another patch of turbulence, and Q tossed back another Xanax, chased with water instead of the vodka he really wanted. He didn’t care that he wasn’t quite up to the next dosing period — he needed some calm _right fucking now_.

The plane was empty, which was a fairly blatant display of just how important this mission apparently was. Of course, it was a charter company and not, say, British Airways, which would’ve made better time. As it was, they had to stop to refuel in New York, which not only added time but an extra landing and take-off, and subsequently cut Q’s Xanax supply by one more.

Heading west, they chased the darkness, and the night stretched on unnaturally. Alec had barely stirred during the refuelling stop. At what should have been five in the morning London time, he opened his eyes and looked across the aisle at Q, blinking at him a few times. Though he seemed half-asleep, there was something sharp-edged about him, and Q knew that Alec’s relaxed posture was deceptive.

“Did you get any sleep?” he asked as he put his seat up. He rose, leaning his hands against the overhead compartment to stretch.

“No,” Q answered tightly, fingers aching. “I require a distraction, but was not allowed to bring my computer with me.”

“No MI6 gear,” Alec agreed. “You can buy yourself something when we’re on the ground. The joys of an unlimited budget.” He dropped his hands and rolled his shoulders, pacing up and down the aisle a few steps. “Any questions?”

“What’s his name?”

“James Bond. Not Jim. He got used to going by his last name, so either will work.” Alec wandered up to the galley in the front and gave a solid, rattling kick to something that Q prayed wasn’t vital to the airplane’s ability to stay in the air. There was a startled yelp and a crash. “Coffee, please,” Alec said sweetly, heading back to his seat. He rolled his eyes and sat back down.

“What happened? Why isn’t he at MI6 like he should be?” Q ground out, closing his eyes. Coffee. How could someone want a bloody stimulant in a tin can that was doing its best to drop itself out of the sky, despite the pilots’ best efforts?

“Seven years ago, Admiral Breckinridge's son —” He glanced over at Q. “You didn’t hear this from me. You heard that the _HMS Justinian_ was lost at sea due to an engine failure?”

“If you tell me that Bond got drunk and grounded a ship, I’m going back home.” Q said, a vision of _Titanic_ flashing through his mind. International transport as a whole wasn’t to be trusted, in his opinion.

Alec’s smile was grim and full of teeth. “We were on the ground, on an op. SBS. Think special forces, only everyone underestimates us. We called the _Justinian_ for an evac, and Breckinridge didn’t secure his route. Every wrong thing that you can imagine doing off an enemy coastline, he did. But because Bond was the ranking officer, the Admiral shifted blame from his dead son to Bond. He was dishonourably discharged three weeks before we were due to start at MI6. He left before he could be summoned to his court martial.”

“How is he so bloody special that MI6 is willing to take him back, and make the court martial go away?” To Q, the files he’d seen didn’t look all that much more impressive than any assassin. Not that he was qualified to judge, of course — dead was dead in his book.

“For one thing, he got us home overland, through hostile territory,” Alec said, his expression absolutely neutral. He paused as the cabin steward came down the aisle and put a cup of coffee on the tray table that Alec pulled out of his seat’s armrest. “Coffee?” Alec asked Q.

Q glared at him before glancing wistfully at the Xanax bottle in his hand. “You think he’s a good man.”

After waving the steward away, Alec looked directly at Q. “I’d die for him. That’s why I can’t do this. Even if I caught up to him, one of us would be forced to cross that line.”

Q sighed, resisting the impulse to tell Alec that he wasn’t willing to do the same. It did make him curious, though — what was it like, to be absolutely convinced that you would die for someone? He understood the feeling in the abstract; he was more than willing to die for England, he supposed. But a person? Q wondered if he even was capable of that sort of passionate emotion. He hadn’t even really _liked_ his last several girlfriends all that much.

Alec watched him for a few long seconds before he picked up his coffee, eyeing it suspiciously. He sipped, wrinkled his nose, and sipped again. “He’s suspicious. He won’t trust you easily,” he said. “He’s a survivor. He likes his comforts, but he can live in the wild, with nothing.”

“Is that where I’m going? The wild?” Q had never been to America, and much of his knowledge came from pop culture and the descriptions from his East Coast friends. Arizona sounded... terrifying, with its deserts and deadly insect populations and well-armed populace.

“Hopefully we’ll have updated intel once we’re on the ground,” Alec said, sounding very blasé about the whole thing, as if he were used to venturing into the Wild West on the sketchy lead provided by a single blurry black-and-white photograph. Then again, he probably was. “Really, he could be anywhere. That’s the problem. He’s fast and he travels light — or so we guess.”

“How am I supposed to get his attention even if I catch up with him? You don’t think he’ll be suspicious that a pale, fresh-off-the-plane British citizen, who just happens to be his type, randomly runs into him on the street?”

Alec smirked at him and looked at his watch. “Not bad. Eight and a half hours to ask that. Tanner owes me fifty quid.” He took another uncertain drink of his coffee. “I can come up with something for you, but it’s best if you come up with your own cover story. That way you’re not tripping up trying to remember something that’s familiar to me but alien to you. Got any ideas?”

“Oh, the cover story is in place,” Q said with a careless wave of his hand. “Before we left. I’m a Ph.D. student at California Polytechnic doing an internship at AT&T Cyber Security in Phoenix. Any records search will turn up straight As and glowing recommendations from most of the faculty, except Professor Johnson, who hates me irrationally.”

Alec turned to stare at him. “Interesting,” he finally said, and for the first time, Q heard genuine respect in his voice. “All right. What about making contact with him, if you’re not going to hit on him?”

“Everyone likes a coffee shop nerd,” Q said with a smirk. “I’ll just find his favourite coffee shop and set up camp. Make the appropriate frustrated noises at my computer and interested glances at him and finally approach him when I find comfort in his London accent. But that still won’t ease his suspicions.”

Grinning now, Alec asked, “And if he’s out in the wilds, training troops for battle?”

“Every army has a network. I’ll find some way in. Maybe I’ll ‘get caught’ hacking their security.” Q shrugged. “I’ll think of something.”

“Perfect,” Alec approved, lifting his questionable coffee. “You’ll do fine. Just don’t fall in love with a plan to the point where you’re unwilling to abandon it.” He sipped at the coffee and said, “They’ll have local mobiles waiting for us. I’ll give you a Google Voice number that’ll forward to me, hopefully without being traceable.”

Q raised his eyebrow at Alec. “You are aware of what I do, right? Perhaps you should let me set up and monitor tech.”

“This came from TSS,” Alec protested, “but if you’d rather. You’re the field operative. Within mission parameters, you’re in charge.”

“You may as well use what TSS gives you for now, until I have a better handle on the situation.” The plane hit more turbulence, and Q held his breath, gripping the armrests tightly again. “Fuck,” he ground out. “Are we there yet?”

“You want to sit here with me?” Alec offered, absolutely neutral. He didn’t cross the aisle to the empty seat beside Q or even reach out for him.

“I’m fine where I am, thank you,” Q gritted out. “Tell me something else. About Bond. That will help with the mission.”

Alec took a breath and leaned his seat back a little. “His parents died when he was eleven. He was raised by an aunt. Boarding schools in Switzerland and Germany. Came home to Scotland every summer. He was thrown out of Eton after less than a year.” Alec grinned abruptly. “That’s how we met. We both decided to join the Navy, and went into the Special Boat Service together. Served most of our time together, too.”

“Why would he be building an an army?” Q asked curiously. He was having trouble making the pieces of James Bond fit together. Q knew damned well that being an orphan didn’t automatically make you someone who craved affection and the company of others — Q’s reaction to the death of his parents had been to avoid social situations at all costs. And given Bond’s supposed love for England, one would imagine he’d be doing whatever was possible to get himself back there. But that didn’t seem to be the case at all.

“No idea. Could be for a job. He’s subcontracted out to additional troops before, in Mozambique and Laos. In both cases, they were temporary — one to three months training, the mission, pay-out, and then they broke up. Or he could be here for training or to make contact with someone for his next job. We don’t know.”

“If you were in his shoes, what would I — or someone who was _your_ type — have to say to get you to come back home?”

Alec sighed and finished off his coffee, grimacing at the end result. “I think that’s why he hasn’t let me get close enough. I really think ‘please, come home’ would do it, if it came from someone he trusted.”

Q looked at him, even more puzzled. If it were that easy, if Bond really wanted it, what was holding him back? “What’s the real reason he doesn’t want to, then?”

“You’ve never been in love, have you?” Alec looked across the aisle. Q wrinkled his nose in distaste. Alec huffed and turned the coffee cup in his fingers. “Imagine being in love with someone all your life. Imagine dedicating everything you are to that person, only to get stabbed in the back, because someone else is pulling her strings. The only thing that kept him from coming home and burning it all to the ground is the fact that by cutting those strings, he’d kill her.”

“Ouch,” Q said, trying to picture what it must have felt like. England was a fickle mistress towards her knights errant, as he well knew from watching the game being played. Spies were left in the cold far, far too frequently to never suspect such backstabbing would be repeated. “What makes you think it won’t happen again, crushing him forever?”

“It will,” Alec said bluntly. “It’ll happen to both of us. I’d just rather see him die for a cause he loves. He’d want the same for me.”

Q stared at him, trying to see the logic in there somewhere. “All right,” he said slowly, a plan of attack forming. He didn’t have to understand to make use of that sort of fucked-up mentality.

“Any other questions?” Alec asked as he stood and picked up the coffee cup.

“No,” Q said, shaking his head. “I just need to think about it for a while.” If he wanted to get that posting at TSS, and be owed appreciation from at least one Double O and M herself, Q needed to get this right.

 

~~~

 

As it turned out, there was Wi-Fi in America — perhaps even more abundant than in London. As soon as they were off the plane and into Terminal 4 at Sky Harbor Airport, Q sat down at a Starbucks kiosk with what was supposed to be a decent cup of Earl Grey tea and Alec’s personal mobile, which he’d pickpocketed while Alec was on his MI6 mobile to contact their local transport.

Alec’s call took ten minutes, which was ninety seconds longer than Q’s Google and Yelp searches of local electronics stores, computer stores, coffee shops, and hotels, both high-end resorts and obscure by-the-hour motels. Q made no purchases but noted a few places of interest.

“This is yours,” he told Alec as he held out the mobile, search history cleared.

Alec took it, his frown brief and confused. Then he rolled his eyes. “Our car’s here. He was waiting at Terminal 3, the idiot. We’re meeting at the North Curb.”

Working with an unlimited budget, Q felt no particular guilt about dumping the horrid tea, wondering why the barista had felt compelled to add three teabags to a perfectly innocent large cup of water. Was Starbucks that bad in London? That was why he stuck to off-brands rather than chains.

They took an escalator down to the ticketing counters. Maybe Alec had been there before, or maybe he just knew airports. Either way, he turned right almost immediately and headed for a wall of doors.

Unsuspecting, Q followed, only to have the breath ripped from his lungs by the dry chill that cut right into his bones. He was dressed for a perfectly respectable London winter, with a good wool overcoat that did nothing against the desiccating cold that seemed to seep around his eyeballs like poisonous fog, burning at the top of his chest.

Alec gave him a sympathetic look. “Just wait till noon. It’ll be in the low to mid-twenties.”

“Oh, god,” Q grumbled, wrapping his scarf around his mouth, hoping to retain the moisture of his breath to his advantage. “The twenties? How do they dress for this?”

“This is tourist season. It gets up to the high forties in summer.” Alec shot Q a grin. “Consider that incentive to work quickly. Summer starts around April,” he said, heading to the right. Just outside the door was a long walkway with slow lanes of traffic — driving on the wrong side, as was customary in America — and faster lanes just beyond. There were very few taxis and a lot of shuttle buses.

“And people live here? On purpose?” he asked, blinking in the relentless sunshine that seemed completely at odds with the chill. “How long has James been here?” he asked, deciding it was probably in his best interest not to use his target’s last name in such a public place.

“No idea. We have only the one drone photo. He may not even still be here,” Alec said grimly. Then he broke out into a sudden smile and said, “Felix!”

A man, almost six feet tall, with dark skin and a receding hairline, broke away from a huge metallic brown pickup truck. “Alec, you son of a bitch. How about giving me more than a half day’s notice next time?” he demanded, giving Alec a handshake and a one-armed hug. His American accent was jarring.

“Bit of a rush,” Alec answered, thumping the man on the back. He turned to indicate Q, saying, “My protégé, god help the lad. Q, this is Felix. Felix, he does computers.”

“I’d never guess,” Felix said, offering Q his hand.

Q would have frowned, but his scarf hid his mouth entirely. So he shook the man’s hand and nodded in acknowledgment. “Pleasure,” he said dryly.

Felix nodded to him. “No luggage?”

Alec shrugged. “We were hoping —”

“Yeah, I know how it goes. Last minute.” He gestured to the pickup truck and said, “Come on. We’ll go for breakfast and figure out what you boys need.”

The truck was needlessly massive, with a full bench behind the passenger seats. Q had to climb in, hanging onto the handle built into the door pillar, but Alec had to do the same to get in the front seat, so he didn’t feel quite so inadequate. Felix climbed in with no difficulty, started the truck, and immediately turned down the volume on the radio, which was tuned to either a talk station or a well-timed commercial.

“What details do you have for me?” Felix asked.

“On the record or off?” Alec countered.

Felix looked over at Alec. “You know what I mean.”

“I’m here strictly as an observer,” Alec promised, holding up his hands. He pulled open his overcoat (which he hadn’t buttoned) and added, “See? Not even armed.”

Felix huffed. “Like that ever stopped you.” He glanced at Q in the rearview mirror as he merged into fast traffic. The pickup truck leaped like a spurred horse, the engine far more powerful than Q expected. “You said this has something to do with an old friend of yours.”

“We’re here just to make contact and offer him a trip home. He’s not wanted. He’s not a threat.”

Felix stared at Alec in brief darting glances between looking at the traffic.

“He’s not a threat to you,” Alec clarified.

“Uh huh. And your backup there?”

“He’s the one who’ll be making contact. If our target sees me, he’ll disappear.”

“So, what? You’re gonna be _subtle?_ ” Felix asked, bursting into laughter which was less than comforting.

Alec sniffed haughtily, though it didn't quite hide his amused grin. “Don’t worry. He’s one of our best operatives. It’ll be fine. Right, Q?”

“Don’t worry, agents; I’m a bloody genius,” Q said with subtle annoyance, looking out the window at the alien landscape. “Was that plant made entirely of spikes?”

In answer, Felix laughed even harder.

 

~~~

 

The Pointe Hilton South Mountain wasn’t like any hotel that Q had ever seen. It lacked any sort of proper central ‘hotel’ building, and was composed instead of a sprawling series of rooms and corridors tucked into and around what the locals apparently called a mountain. There was grass here, unlike in most of the city, but also an abundance of rocks, cacti, and palm trees covered with white fairy lights. There were an astonishing number of swimming pools and fountains as well, and he couldn’t help but wonder if evaporation wasn’t a problem.

True to his promise, Felix brought them to the resort after a surprisingly large breakfast as well as a brief trip to the mall, for clothes, and a much longer trip to what Q suspected might be heaven. The electronics store was the size of a stadium, with fully half the floorspace dedicated to computer components, including an entire wall of processors, motherboards, and RAM. Q’s fingers itched, and he wondered what it would take to lose both Alec and Felix, whom he learned was from the CIA. Then, of course, it occurred to him that he didn’t have to. Q was the primary, with an unlimited budget.

Telling, rather than asking, was surprisingly easy.

Tens of thousands of dollars, three cups of coffee (better than the mall’s version of tea), and several hours of work later, Q had recreated a small, but functional, version of TSS in his hotel room. Unfortunately, the damned city — if the miles of urban sprawl without any sort of impressive downtown could be called a city — didn’t seem to believe in CCTV. There were a handful of traffic cameras that Q could have hacked if it were worth the effort, but they weren’t pointed at anything useful. Instead, Q focused on running facial recognition programs on every Phoenix area social media account he could find. Not that he thought James Bond would have a Facebook page, of course; he was looking for accidental captures.

The next few days passed in a blur of coffee, hacking sites with predominantly blue logos, and what Felix called Fake Mexican — though Q thought it was plenty spicy enough, and secretly wondered if his taste buds would ever grow back. Alec’s and Felix’s laughter served as a somewhat annoying background track that even Space Cowboy at too-high volume in his earbuds couldn’t quite suppress.

Every once in awhile, Q would come up for air, more coffee, or to stare with morbid fascination at the landscape outside. Felix had warned him about the man-eating plants, the scorpions, and the various other wildlife that seemed to serve no purpose but to test the survivability of the local population, so he didn’t feel particularly compelled to go outside.

Whenever he needed a distraction, he would grill Alec with a series of increasingly personal questions about Bond. What does he like to drink? (Martinis after dark, whisky at any time, day or night.) What kind of music does he like? (Classic rock, or alternative rock, but he’ll never admit it.) What sort of nightclubs would he go to? (Anything, as long as he could dance and had a shot at getting laid.) Where would he go when he needed to relax and cool down? (Shooting range, which made Phoenix perfect, because there were both indoor and outdoor shooting ranges all over the valley.) What behaviours in particular would bring the quickest attachment? (Vulnerability. Rescue. The opportunity to play white knight — or black knight, as the one seducing.)

Q toyed with several ideas as he waited for Bond to reveal himself. Should he let himself get mugged — an easy enough task to accomplish with local help — so Bond could rescue him? Should he play the part of abused partner getting coffee at the same shop as Bond every morning? Those and a myriad of other ideas seemed far too blatant to put into use.

Perhaps something more subtle. A cavalier lack of care for his own safety? That would play nicely into hacking the security of whoever might be working with Bond, if there were network security to crack.

By the time he finally found Bond four days into his stay in Phoenix, he still hadn’t decided. He swallowed down nervousness as he stared at the photograph of a man who was clearly James Bond outside the University of Phoenix Stadium, utterly surrounded by people — mostly men, though far from exclusively — carrying guns of all kinds. The photo was tagged Crossroads of the West Gun Shows.

Staring at the puckish grin on Bond’s face as he examined a shotgun, Q finally made his decision.

Reckless thrill seeker.

That ought to do it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Saturday, 9 February 2012**

The University of Phoenix Stadium was a good forty minutes from the hotel. After assuring Alec several times that he’d check in, since he was operating with only his new mobile phone and no MI6 communications or tracking devices, Q took his rental car and followed the GPS’ instructions down the I-10 to the Loop 101. He’d gone out driving several times, mostly to the electronics shop near the hotel, so driving on the wrong side of the road wasn’t quite as disorienting as it might have been.

When he didn’t immediately see a highway exit, he drove past the stadium — a massive silver monstrosity that looked like a half-deflated balloon with _University of Phoenix_ written in huge red lights on the side. The next exit took him to a complex of restaurants, boutique stores, and carparks that reminded him of some trendy London neighbourhoods, without the traffic issues. He saw couples, groups of friends, families with children, and even people with dogs all out enjoying the day that had gone from frigid before sunrise to almost unpleasantly warm by the time it was midday. The area was blanketed with CCTV, and a social creature like Bond, if he was in a good mood, would surely end up here after the gun show.

Q paid his parking fee and followed the directions of flag-waving attendants to the next available spot in a row of parking spaces. He put some effort into memorising where he’d parked; in the time it took him to shut the engine and get out of the car, another twenty cars had been added to the row, and the attendants were already working on the next one.

All this, for a gun show?

There was no neat queue — just a mass of people, almost every one of them armed, all slowly converging on the bank of doors and ticket windows. Q hung back, suddenly realising just how difficult it might well be to find a single person in this mass. As soon as he was inside the dark, air-conditioned space, he’d have to get on his laptop and hack the stadium’s CCTV network.

He bought his ticket (and he laughed at the student discount the clerk offered), handed his ticket over at the doors, and went into the chaos. It reminded him of a better-armed version of CES, complete with covered booths, flashing lights, and even — absurdly — booth babes in camo bikinis and tight T-shirts holding assault rifles instead of swords.

Q was glad he’d dressed simply: dark jeans, dark red shirt, tousled hair, biker boots, and a black leather jacket. He’d done enough clubbing to know that he looked good like this; with his colouring, red in particular seemed to draw interested people like moths to a flame.

After a long moment of staring — which actually served the purpose of allowing him to fix the building’s layout, including entrances and exits, in his mind — Q found a quiet corner to pull out his mobile. He’d already installed an invisible camera on the bottom right of his jacket, disguised as a decorative bit of metal, which would send landscape images to his phone for facial recognition. If Bond were here, he’d find him. In the meantime, he’d see what American weapons manufacturing had to offer.

Two hours later, he was at the booth of a local indoor shooting range, looking at handguns of various sizes and shapes, arguing with the seller about the merits of a biometric scanner in the grips, when his phone beeped.

It took every ounce of patience that Q had not to immediately look up and do a scan in the direction of where his camera was pointing. Instead, he took his time, finishing his conversation, trying not to give away the fact that his adrenaline had spiked significantly. Finally, the seller snatched the Glock away with an irritated huff that Q couldn’t help but laugh at. It became natural, then, to turn and scan for somewhere else to look.

He saw his target just a few booths down on the other side of the aisle, recognising him only because he was still wearing the same battered brown leather jacket as in the picture that Q’s search routine had found earlier that morning. The picture had been in shadow; now, in the bright light of the show, his hair was no longer dirty brown but blond. He had his back to Q, head turned in profile, as he sighted down the length of a black rifle with an ominously thick, almost spiky body shape, like something out of a science fiction movie. He was moving his left hand between two grips on the forward end of the weapon — one angled, one sticking straight down. Bond finally seemed to make a decision between the two, and he lowered the rifle to hand it off to the booth attendant.

Hiding any reaction of recognition, Q wandered to the booth nearest to Bond. The display was an impressive collection of knives, batons, and other ‘self-defence’ weaponry. He was instantly drawn to a black collapsible baton, made by Smith and Wesson. He picked it up admiringly, snapping it out to its full twenty-four inches, and giving it an experimental swipe through the air.

“Seamless alloy steel tubing,” the salesman said in a drawl that Q could barely understand. “Used by SWAT across the country, and even the Texas Rangers themselves.”

Q grinned at the salesman. “How would I even learn how to use these?” he asked, carefully monitoring the voice and movements of his target only a few paces to the right of him. Q picked up a second baton, released it to its full length, and looked at it admiringly. “Are they legal to carry?”

“I’m not a lawyer,” the salesman said — the same standard disclaimer Q had been hearing throughout the show. “In Arizona, it’s not considered a deadly weapon.”

Behind him, he heard Bond pause in the middle of discussing optics — a far more interesting discussion, given the technical details he was referencing. Parallax? A combined scope and holographic sight?

Q held the weapons in his hand, feeling their balance and how easily someone like him — smaller, lighter frame — could use them to his advantage in hand to hand combat. “I’ll take them both, I think,” he said with a chuckle, setting them on the booth to dig his wallet out of his jeans pocket. “Though you never did answer my question. Where does one go to learn how to properly use them?” He handed his fake ID — which was perfectly valid as far as any database in the world could tell — and raised an expectant eyebrow.

The salesman handed over a photocopy of a photocopy on a clipboard with a pen taped to a string. “Let me get you a list of local dojos,” he offered, ducking to pull a box out from under the table.

Q filled out the form while the salesman snapped a photo of his ID. He handed over the photo and a garish yellow flyer listing nearby dojos that would give a discount with a purchase receipt. The paperwork exchange took just a few minutes, and then Q tucked the two batons, boxed and bagged, into his messenger bag.

Worried that Bond had moved on, he turned to scan the next booth, which immediately caught and held his attention for at least a moment. The booth was one of the covered ones, a multiple-space display that included televisions mounted to the back wall, racks of guns, and displays on acrylic stands that featured guns, scopes, and even gun safes. Unlike the scruffy, disreputable melee weapon vendor, the attendants in the next booth over — male and female — were all dressed professionally, and wouldn’t have been out of place at any normal business convention.

Bond was still there, Q saw as he let himself keep scanning, and for an instant, their eyes locked. Outside, Bond had been wearing sunglasses; now, Q saw that his eyes were a very light blue, almost like glass. He looked amused for a moment, before he turned to continue his conversation with one of the booth attendants. While talking, he put a hand into the inside pocket of his jacket and took out a business card case.

Q slowly walked over to the booth, eyes focused on the small array of small-calibre weaponry. He caught the attention of the second attendant and waved him over to the Glock. “The gentleman three booths back and two over told me it was impossible to modify a weapon with anything as complicated as a biometric scanner, just to keep unwanted hands off your own gun. In fact, he seemed to find the very idea offensive. What do you think?”

“The tech’s still flawed,” the salesman said at once, catching Q by surprise. “It’s been tried with RFID tech — an implanted chip or on a ring or bracelet — and that’s not too bad, but if you lose the chip, you lose access to the gun. And grip recognition accuracy’s only... what, about ninety per cent?” he asked, glancing at another of the attendants.

“In the last article I read, I think they got it to ninety-two,” the other salesman said as he wandered over. “That’s eight per cent of the time when you want to be able to fire your weapon, but can’t. Too risky if you’re looking for protection.”

“From what I understand, the problem lies not in the actual reader in the handle, but in the programming in the scanner. Substandard print recognition that can’t account for subtle variances due to pressure and variables like sweat or sand.” Q lifted one of the guns, examining the grip. “I think I’d like to take a crack at it. Which weapon would you recommend for that sort of application?”

“Mossberg and Colt have both looked into it,” the first salesman said, his expression turning slightly amused. Off to the right, Q heard Bond mutter his thanks, and Q glanced over to see Bond take a black bag with a round logo on it. “It’s not really cost effective,” the salesman continued. “If nothing else, you’d need a manual backup in case the batteries fail — like how our biometric or electronic safes all have key backups.”

“I suppose that’s reasonable,” Q said, “though not ideal. I’ll have to tinker, I think. I’ll start with the Glock, I think.”

“Probably not your best bet, since it doesn’t even have a safety, except for the trigger sensor,” the salesman advised as Bond started walking towards Q, moving with the flow of the crowd.

Then Bond stopped, right behind Q, and extended a plain white business card to him. “He knows what he’s doing,” Bond said quietly. The name on the card was Frank Wade, and though the Arizona address wasn’t in Phoenix, the phone number was one of the local area codes, as far as Q could recall. At the bottom of the card, it read ‘ _Private Self-Defense Consultations’_.

Q looked at Bond, not having to pretend to be startled, as he took the card. “A fellow Londoner,” he said, flashing Bond a grin. “Thank you.”

Bond nodded, and Q didn’t miss the way Bond’s eyes dropped, taking him in from head to toe in a quick glance. “Tell him you got that from James.” He looked past Q then and gave another nod to the sales staff before he started off again.

Fighting the urge to chase after Bond, Q turned back to the salesman, tucking the card safely into his pocket. “No safety is perfect for my purposes. I’ll take one, please.”

This time, the ID check was much more extensive, including a phone call that lasted fifteen minutes. Q allowed the other salesmen to distract him by asking a few questions about what Bond had been examining, and in the time it took for the salesman to finish the background check, Q had learned a great deal about holographic sights.

Once the weapon was safely tucked into a foam-lined hard plastic case, complete with quality inspection certificates and test-fired brass, Q pulled out his mobile and dialled the number on the card. He left the show reluctantly, not wanting to leave his target behind, but not wanting to spook him with a second meeting, either. Even if the Wade lead failed to produce contact with Bond, Q was certain he could arrange another run-in based on surveillance.

 

~~~

 

North of the stadium, the restaurants and boutiques surrounded a series of plazas and fountains designed to encourage browsing or lingering. The afternoon grew cool as the sun lowered to the west, and Q couldn’t help but stare off in that direction as he sent a quick text to Alec to let him know that everything was fine. The last thing he needed was Alec showing up at the shopping centre and spooking Bond out of misguided concern for Q’s wellbeing.

To the west, beyond the parking lot and the highway, farmland stretched out between shopping centres, strip malls, and housing developments. Q could see for miles beyond that, all the way to a range of low mountains that stretched north to south like a wall. The ‘valley’, as he’d learned, was actually a massive square flatland roughly surrounded on four sides by mountains, with one or two mountains randomly stuck in the middle.

Once the text was sent, he checked his mobile, verifying that he was still pulling data from the Westgate security cameras. In the twenty minutes it took for him to have a long, pointless discussion with Frank Wade and to send the text, his mobile had updated with multiple pictures of Bond: heading north past the ice rink where the local hockey team played (which made absolutely no sense, given that they were in the desert), passing between the two fountains, and then lingering at the foot of an outdoor escalator. In two of the pictures, there was a slender, dark-skinned woman with him, but she was out of sight by the last picture, when Bond seemed to be headed to one of the restaurants that lined the colonnade.

Q wandered that way as though debating an early dinner. The restaurants were all crowded even at this early hour, so he was able to linger unnoticed, pretending to study the menus posted outside each one.

He spotted Bond at the bar inside one of the restaurants. He’d taken off his jacket and hung it over the back of his chair. He was no longer carrying the bag from the gun show. He wore a dark blue button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to just below his elbows, showing heavily defined, tanned forearms. As Q watched, the bartender brought him a beer, presumably to accompany the shallow ceramic bowl of chicken wings.

After verifying that the surveillance photos were uploaded to the server at the hotel, Q deleted the copies from his mobile and turned off all audio notifications. He also locked the screen, ensuring that he wouldn’t get any accidental video or text alerts that Bond might be able to read. Then he entered the restaurant, took Wade’s business card from his pocket, and walked over to his target.

“Hi, James,” he said cheerfully, though not loudly, when he was within a few feet of Bond’s seat. When Bond turned, Q continued, “I hate to interrupt your dinner, but I wanted to give you this back.” He passed the card over. “A bit too expensive for a grad student, I’m afraid. But thank you anyway.”

Bond raised a brow and took the card back. “Cheaper than cracking your own skull open if you try to teach yourself, I’d imagine. Did you tell him you’re a student?”

“I did,” Q said with a rueful grin. “It took twenty minutes and the comparison of how many pot noodles and how much Mountain Dew I would have to sacrifice for lessons for us to decide it just wasn’t going to work out to either of our advantage.”

Bond frowned, looking Q over again. “Just how old are you?”

Q’s self-deprecating grin didn’t have to be faked; this was a question he’d was all too familiar with. “Twenty-three. Ph.D. student at California Polytechnic. I’m in Phoenix for an internship, actually.”

That seemed to set Bond’s concerns at ease. “There a particular reason you need what you bought?” he asked discreetly.

Q motioned to the empty chair beside Bond. “Do you mind?”

Bond laughed. “Go ahead,” he invited, looking to the bartender to catch his eye. He pulled a menu card out from where it sat between a serviette dispenser and a basket of condiments and offered it to Q. “I’m buying.”

“Thank you.” Q sat down and took the menu, but didn’t look at it, instead choosing to slide it in front of him, face up. “A lot of the work I do is at night. It’s not exactly safe. So I thought this might help.” He looked up at Bond with a grin. “Though I really think I might take a crack at the biometric reader. Maybe turn it into my dissertation.”

“Could be useful,” Bond said, glancing at Q casually, though his eyes were too sharp, too discerning. He didn’t say anything as the bartender came to take Q’s order. Q took a quick glance down at the menu, and when he looked up to give the bartender his order, he realised Bond could see half of the restaurant in the mirror behind the bar; the rest was probably visible in front of him, since he was close to the corner. He was positioned to see both exits and the hallway to the loos as well.

“What about you?” Q asked when the bartender was gone. “What brings you here from London?”

“Defence consulting work. International,” Bond said with a little shrug. “Corporate security, bodyguarding, that sort of thing.” Then he gave Q a grin and added, “It’s originally Scotland. I suppose I’ve lost most of that after all the travel I’ve done.

“International defence consulting? That sounds like fun,” Q replied, smiling. “My internship is for AT&T, in cyber security, but that’s not nearly as interesting as it sounds. I think I’d rather be out and about, rather than stuck in a windowless office.”

“I couldn’t agree more. Of course, your advantage is that no one’s shooting at you,” Bond pointed out. “Why not join the Royal Army, though? They’d probably love to have you, and you’d see a bit of action.”

“I’m not sure I’m exactly Army material,” Q said, shaking his head and looking down at his hands. “I’m not particularly strong, and I rather like being able to sleep in until noon most days. And I don’t like people yelling at me. I hear that happens a lot in the Army.”

“True — though it’s different when _everyone’s_ being yelled at. You’d have to get a haircut.” Bond glanced at Q’s hair with a hint of interest showing for the first time. “They’d probably fund eye surgery, if you wanted to be rid of your glasses.”

“Sounds like I’d have to change an awful lot to get yelled at and shot at,” Q said, meeting his gaze. “Might as well stay here in America and get the same things, and still sleep in until noon.”

Bond laughed and nodded thoughtfully. “Fair enough. And you’ll be able to do something useful. Cyber security isn’t too different from what I do, I suppose. More typing, less fresh air.”

Q nodded. “Sometimes it feels a little pointless. You repel one attack, and just when you get a sense of victory at a job well done, you’re chasing down someone else. After awhile the sense of victory gets lost in the exhaustion of a never-ending cycle.” He shrugged, the truth of that statement bringing out his natural weariness with it. “Sometimes I envy people who can just shoot their enemies. Keeps them from coming back over and over again.”

“There’s always another enemy. That’s the one universal truth I’ve found,” Bond said a bit grimly. “Find what you’re good at, do it until you’re sick of it. Then find something else, and to hell with what anyone else thinks.”

“And what are you good at?” Q asked, shrugging off his jacket and hanging it on the back of the chair. Alec wasn’t kidding about the swings in temperature.

“Not dying,” Bond answered, the grim mood falling away as he shrugged. “You bought the Glock, too, didn’t you?”

Q nodded, looking at Bond’s scarred arms, resisting the urge to trace some of the scars he saw there. He was no expert, but he could see knife wounds, burns, and even what looked like shrapnel markings scattered near his elbow. “I don’t actually know anything about guns yet, but I’m a fast learner.”

“And you started with a _Glock_? Christ,” Bond said, shaking his head. “You’re going to get yourself killed. Did you at least sign up for a class?”

“There are classes? I thought I was just supposed to take it to a range and” — Q grinned — “have at it. It doesn’t seem that complicated. Point, shoot. Load ammo occasionally.”

“Do you know how to load it? Do you know what calibre it takes? How to clear a jam? How to sight it in? How to clean it? When _not_ to draw it?” Bond challenged, though without any anger in his voice.

“Not yet, but I bet YouTube does. I watched some videos on using the batons, too, while I was looking for someplace to eat.” Q thought about some of the sparring practises he’d watched when he was bored at MI6, and smiled mischievously. “I’m going to look like a ninja when I get good at it.”

Bond turned and stared at him. Then, as the bartender brought over his food and drink, he turned away and took a pen out of his jacket. He scribbled an address on a serviette and pushed it over to Q. “Be there at nine tomorrow — What’s your name?”

“Oh god, I’m so sorry,” Q said with an embarrassed chuckle. He extended his hand. “Adalbert. Adalbert Q. Dzwonek. Everyone calls me Q.”

“James Bond,” he answered, clasping Q’s hand. He didn’t trap Q or cling to him or try to crush his fingers; perhaps Alec had been wrong about Bond’s type. Bond let go and tapped the napkin, saying, “Nine, Adalbert. It’s an outdoor range. You probably don’t have hearing protection or safety glasses, do you?”

“No, but I can go back to the show if I need to. And please, call me Q.” He took the serviette and verified that the address was legible. “Thank you, James. This is very nice of you.”

“I need to sight in my new scope. I might as well keep you from shooting yourself in the foot,” he said with a low laugh.

Q looked down, frowning at his hands. He needed to catch Bond’s attention a little bit more solidly — to spark his interest. He thought back to his original ideas for approaching Bond, and made a quick decision. Without looking up, he cleared his throat, tracing some of the scars on his hands from computer building projects gone poorly. “I would really love to know how to use the batons, actually. More so than the gun. You get in less trouble for using those in self-defence, and you don’t hesitate as much, I’ve been told. If you know someone who maybe teaches on the side, I’d appreciate the recommendation.”

“Actually, you’re worse off with the batons than the gun. The purpose of self-defence is to escape, not take down a target,” Bond said. “If you’re in fear for your life or safety, you shoot and you get the hell out. The batons are showy and better than nothing, but that Glock will protect you far better.”

“I don’t know if I could actually shoot someone, James,” Q said honestly. “I know that probably sounds stupid to someone like you, but...” He shrugged.

Bond turned and leaned an arm on the bar, lowering his voice as he drew an inch closer to Q. “Those batons can crush a man’s skull. Tear open his face. Drive his ribs into his lung. You think you can do that, but not shoot from a safe distance?”

Q looked up and met Bond’s flat, almost dead-eyed gaze. “I didn’t know that. I thought it would just knock them out. Sorry.” He looked back down at his hands and cleared his throat again, this time not acting at all. Visions of a man being shredded by the steel batons floated through his imagination. He shuddered and leaned back. “Thank you for dinner.”

Bond opened his wallet again and took out a couple of twenty-dollar bills. He dropped them on the bar and said, “Finish it. You can’t spend the day shooting with nothing but pot noodles for dinner.” He gave Q a faint smile and picked up his jacket.

Q nodded, met Bond’s gaze just long enough to smile uncertainly before looking back at his plate. “See you tomorrow.”

“Have a good night, Q.” Bond shrugged the jacket on and left, glancing around at the exits as he did.

 _Fucking liar_ , Q thought bitterly, determined to punch Alec when he got back to the hotel. Q wondered if the point had been to set Q up for this, to lay him out for exactly the sort of discomfort he was feeling now. If that had been Alec’s purpose, it had worked perfectly. If Q had been an average CalPoly grad student, he would have stayed far, far away from James Bond.

Q poked unenthusiastically at his quesadilla, but drank his beer. At least showing up tomorrow would be in keeping with the self-destructive identity he was building for himself. As long as Bond didn’t shoot him tomorrow morning, Alec would consider it progress.

 

~~~

 

Alec had set his room up with an almost identical computer system as Q’s, though his was more portable and compact. He had his laptop open, but the screensaver was on. _The Avengers_ was paused on the telly, at the scene where the helicarrier first lifts off.

“How’d it go? Did you find him?” Alec asked as he let Q into the room.

“You’re a fucking liar, you know that?” Q hissed, resisting the urge to throw a punch, knowing it would just get him decked in return.

Alec stared at him and closed the door. “What?”

“About Bond. I pushed all the right buttons, said all the right things, and all he did was try to scare the hell out of me. Only my cover as a self-destructive little shit is going to justify my showing up tomorrow morning.”

“What did you say? What did _he_ say?” Alec crossed to the armchair, leaving the settee for Q.

“He bought me dinner when I ‘ran into him’ at a restaurant by the gun show. We talked about his work in ‘defence contracting’ and mine in cyber security. He told me I should join the army. Invited me to a firing range to keep me from killing myself with my recently purchased handgun. And when I suggested I wanted to learn how to use the batons more, for self-defence purposes, he brutally described how awful they were and left.” Q glared at Alec. “Not exactly what I was expecting.”

Infuriatingly, the bastard laughed. “So, you presented yourself as a novice with melee weapons and firearms, and _didn’t_ expect him to try to scare you? Protective, remember? What did you expect? For him to adopt you as a pet project?”

“You knew I was meeting him at a gun show, and you knew I don’t know anything about handling weapons. Some warning would have been nice.” Q said darkly, clenching his fists. It was getting harder to _not_ punch Alec.

“I’m guessing you didn’t hit on him. You were going to connect through either sex or protectiveness, so I’m not seeing where the problem is. How did you _want_ him to respond?”

Q stared at Alec. This was absolutely _not_ how normal people thought. He clenched his fist and evaluated the probable outcome of punching Alec. He’d likely hit back, but it would be worth it just to get rid of his smug grin. And much as Alec’s response would probably hurt, at least Q would have a bruise to get James all riled up with. So, careful to shape his fist according to his training, he pulled back and hit Alec in the jaw.

Alec let it happen — Q _knew_ he let it happen, because there was no possible way Q could hit him fast enough to evade his defences.  He just closed his eyes and turned with the punch (and the force of it hurt Q’s knuckles worse than it apparently hurt Alec’s face). Then he looked at Q with that same flat, dead-eyed look that Bond had had, and Q could see the resemblance between the two old friends.

“Feel better?” Alec asked.

Q shook his hand, wincing at the pain of it, glaring at Alec. “No.”

Alec huffed and pointed at the settee. “That was your one free shot. Don’t try it again.”

“Be more helpful,” Q suggested, flexing his hand as he sat down. “Is this going to bruise?”

“It might. Put some ice on it,” he advised. “How can I be more helpful? You said he invited you to a firing range. What’s wrong with that?”

“I have the feeling he’s just going to show me how to load, aim, and fire, and then walk away again. Obviously I didn’t do enough to catch his interest today. Maybe I should have gone with the ‘get caught hacking’ plan or ‘get mugged’ plan.” Q glowered at his throbbing hand.

“Stop worrying about building a relationship. You need him to trust you enough not to walk away the minute you tell him to come back to England. No matter what, you’re lying to him from the beginning. Just do what it takes to overcome his initial objection, and let us handle the rest. You don’t have to become his best friend.”

Q resisted the urge to snap back at Alec about his best friend status, but decided against it. Alec was completely right. “Fine. Sorry.” He stood and headed toward the door. “I have work to do.”

“Green,” Alec called back quietly, before he reached the door.

“Yes, Alec?” Q turned to raise an eyebrow at Trevelyan.

“If he shows up tomorrow, you’re doing fine. And if he doesn’t, then you didn’t fuck up any worse than I already have.”

“Thanks,” Q said, carefully turning back to the door before he rolled his eyes. “Good night.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Sunday, 10 February 2013**

Ben Avery Shooting Range was on the far north side of Phoenix, beyond the first set of mountains. The road signs were for places like Cave Creek, Carefree, and Black Canyon City. When he pulled off the highway, following the signs to the shooting range, he saw a roadside stand selling not produce or flowers but beef jerky.

 _Surreal_ , he thought, and crossed the I-17, driving west to the range. He could hear gunfire before he’d even parked the car, though there were only eight or ten other cars in the car park. The shooting range was little more than a row of cement tables visible beyond a chain link fence, and the shooters were all targeting wooden boards set back towards low hills.

James Bond was there, sitting on a table on the car park side of the fence, cigarette in hand. He wore a plain black T-shirt, jeans, and sunglasses, though he had his leather jacket with him, along with a large rifle case and a duffel bag. He turned to watch Q walk towards him.

“I didn’t know if you’d make it,” Bond said.

“I didn’t know if I would be able to get up early enough to make it on time,” Q said with a chuckle, flopping the messenger bag on the table before he sat down. “Not in the least because I can’t find a decent cup of tea here anywhere.”

“India. China. Australia. Some places on the east coast,” Bond answered. He took the pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket and offered them to Q.

Q shook his head. “Too bad I hate to fly. At this point, I’m damn tempted.”.

Bond turned his way again, briefly. “You hate to fly? Not much of an international career that way.”

“Good drugs help,” Q said with a crooked smile. “Lots and lots of very good drugs. Or vodka. _And_ vodka, if it’s longer than twelve hours.”

Bond huffed out a laugh and scraped his cigarette on the edge of the table. “You wouldn’t last a month,” he said, pitching the butt towards an oil drum used as a bin. He picked up the duffel bag and pulled it over his shoulder, then gathered his jacket and the rifle case. “I’m guessing you didn’t buy ammo, since you didn’t mention the shortage.”

“I thought they sold it here,” Q asked, standing and pulling his bag up.

“Only at the private ranges. This one’s run by the state government. I brought some,” Bond said, heading for the entry station. “I know people. Otherwise, you can’t get anything but the obscure calibres, and even those are going for double the old cost.”

Q looked over at Bond, smiling. “Thank you. I’m happy to pay you back. It must be useful, having contacts in your line of work, when things like ammo shortages occur. Which... how does that happen? There isn’t any lack of base components as far as I’m aware.”

“Panic-buying. The Americans are changing their laws, only no one knows how it’s going to end. That’s why half the tables at the gun show were empty or promising product delivery in six months to a year.” Bond glanced at the messenger bag. “Normally, you would’ve had forty handguns to choose from, instead of the seven they had on display.” He went into the entry station and put a twenty dollar bill down for the clerk. “Two,” he said, digging into the duffel bag. He offered Q heavy grey ear protectors and a pair of yellow safety glasses.

“Thank you,” Q said, looking at the head protection dubiously. “I’m going to look... interesting, with these on. I wonder if they make prescription versions of these?” He slid them over his glasses, which had the effect of shoving them up his nose. “Or maybe I should think about contacts.”

“If you get serious, they’ve got them in prescription,” Bond answered, showing the clerk his own hearing protectors — which had dials and what looked like foam-covered mics — and glasses. “We’ve got targets,” he added, and took back six dollars in change. He shoved the notes into his pocket and led Q to the other side of the entry station. Just outside the door, he put on the ear protectors and switched out the sunglasses for the safety glasses. Then he hung the sunglasses on the back of his T-shirt, at his nape, and started walking down the line of benches.

Q couldn’t help but stare at Bond’s back — he looked damn good in his tight shirt and tight jeans. Q wondered if he had to work out excessively to look that good, or if it came with the sort of work he did. He cleared his throat and looked away, finding ample distraction in the construction of the range. It was built almost entirely of wood, cement, and aluminum. There were no walls, and no booths, which just helped add to its sense of immenseness. He looked curiously at the lights on the top of the range. “Do people shoot here at night?”

“Probably. I’ve only been here a couple of weeks,” Bond admitted. “I know they do classes and have clubs that rent out sections of the range. There’s a heavy weapons shooting club that meets somewhere up north once every few months. They do night shoots with tracer rounds, if that’s your thing.”

“I think I’ll stick to daylight until I get a better handle on it all,” Q said, wondering what exactly the heavy weapons club shot. Grenade launchers? Explosions were right up his street. Or perhaps he could test weapons targeting systems, if he ended up being here long enough. The thought of tinkering with a turret-mounted computer-controlled weapon was surprisingly attractive.

Bond laughed, low and amused. He stopped at the last booth and set down his bag and rifle case on the floor. The concrete table was shaped like a T, with wooden stools tucked into the missing corners. Bond sat down on one of the stools and leaned over to unzip the bag.

“Take out your Glock. Do you know how to open the slide and verify you don’t have a round chambered?”

Q set his messenger bag down on the table, opening it and pulling out the plastic box with his gun inside. He stuffed the certificates in the bag, out of the way, and pulled out the gun. He held it for a long moment, staring at it, feeling irrationally intimidated by it. But he’d spent hours watching videos and reading specs last night, and did as Bond asked without trouble, though his movements were still tentative.

Bond watched intently, then gave a nod as the slide locked back. “Now the weapon’s safe. Unless it’s locked open like that, with no magazine and no round, you always keep it pointed downrange or holstered. If you point it at something, you’d better be ready to pull the trigger. Got it?”

“I don’t have a holster yet,” Q said, setting the gun down carefully on the table, pointed downrange. “It’s odd. Intellectually, I’m fully aware that this is just another machine. Like a car or a computer. Less complicated even. But when I look at it, it feels different. Less like a machine, more like... “ He stopped, not quite certain how to finish.

“Like it wants to kill.” Bond took a box of ammunition out of his bag and set it down.

Q nodded. “Which is absurd, of course.” He cast a glance at the ammunition.

“Everywhere on the planet _but_ Western civilisation, people talk about objects having their own lives. You don’t make a gun as a paperweight. You make it to put holes in things — whether it’s targets, animals, or people. They’d say that the gun knows its purpose. You know how to load a magazine? How to put it in and drop it out?”

Once again, falling back on hard-earned knowledge gleaned from too many hours watching YouTube late into the night, Q did as he was asked, only fumbling slightly as he unloaded and reloaded the magazine. He only almost dropped it once, which was better than he’d managed last night. “I’ll get better,” he promised, repeating the process, a little faster, the second time.

“You’re doing fine,” Bond encouraged. “Speed comes with practice. For now, your only concern is comfort. Then you can work on accuracy. Drop the mag out and load it,” he said, pushing the box of ammunition towards Q. “I’ll get you started, and then set up my rifle.”

 

~~~

 

After Q learned to handle the recoil and his automatic flinch-reflex, he started to enjoy shooting. At first, it was simply the mechanical precision required to line up the front and back sights and pull the trigger without letting the muzzle shift. The weapon was both simple and deceptively complex, with not just mechanical action — pull the trigger, release the firing pin — but the recoil-driven slide that ejected the spent cartridge and made room for the next round. He found it irritating to have to reload every seventeen rounds, and could suddenly see the appeal of larger magazines, drums, and belt-feeds.

As soon as Bond was assured that Q wasn’t going to shoot himself or anyone else, he turned his attention to his own rifle: a huge, rather vicious-looking black weapon to which he’d mounted a tan scope in two pieces. The back piece looked like a normal cylindrical scope; the front was a boxy piece that Q recognised from yesterday as the holographic sight. Bond spent a great deal of time balancing the rifle on a front-mounted bipod, staring through it, and making minute adjustments to the sights, and Q had gone through half the box of ammunition before Bond fired a single shot.

When he did fire, the sound was deafening even with the hearing protectors. The recoil bucked the rifle into Bond’s right shoulder, and Q saw the slightest flicker of tension in his expression. He didn’t stop, though; he made another subtle adjustment, snuggled the rifle into place, and fired again.

It was fascinating to watch. Bond seemed to _listen_ to the gun in a way that had him constantly making minor adjustments, both to the gun and to his own stance and movements. Q found himself laying the Glock down on the table once he finished his magazine, watching a beautiful, lethal partnership evolve between the scope, the gun, and Bond.

“Did you want to try?” Bond asked without turning away from the scope.

Q looked from Bond’s hands to his eyes just as he pulled the trigger. Somehow, Bond didn’t even blink, despite the controlled, contained explosion just under his cheek. “I’m not sure. Does it hurt your shoulder?”

Bond laughed and sat up, flexing his shoulders back. “Been shot there recently?”

“I’ve never been shot at all,” Q confessed, as if he were missing out on something. It was practically a rite of passage at MI6 — he wouldn’t have minded a bullet wound scar before his promotion.

“Then you should be fine. There’s a recoil pad on it for a reason.” Bond got up off his stool, holding the rifle by the stock. “Sit.”

Q approached the gun warily but without hesitation. He sat on the stool and immediately peered through the scope. To his surprise, it was very much like a video game targeting reticle. The distant target — a page with concentric rings, taped to a sheet of plywood — was suddenly close enough to touch, and it was simple for Q to shift the position of the heavy weapon, lining up the bright red floating circle with the concentric rings. There was even a floating red dot in the centre.

Then he felt hands on him, and his surprised twitch threw his targeting off completely. Bond’s fingers tightened on his shoulders for a moment, steadying him. “You want tension between your body and your hand. Turn a bit more, and hold the front and here, gently. It’s just going to rest there,” Bond said, encouraging Q to almost hug the weapon to his chest. His head tipped more comfortably into place, and though it didn’t feel right, it also didn’t feel uncomfortable.

Bond covered Q’s right hand with his own and moved it up, and Q gritted his teeth to keep from hissing at the press on his damaged knuckles. “Don’t press the trigger for now. Just feel it. Be aware of your breathing. Do you see the target?” Bond asked, rubbing his thumb over Q’s knuckles. He’d washed them last night and this morning, leaving only scrapes and deep, hidden bruises.

Q tore his focus from the pain in his hand, hoping Bond didn’t press too hard, or he would end up flinching and possibly shooting something other than the target. He focused on the red dot. “Yes, I see it,” he answered quietly.

“Okay. Breathe,” Bond said, sliding his hands back to rest on Q’s shoulders. “When you’re ready, exhale partway and then stop breathing. Start to pull the trigger, but don’t anticipate. It’s like sex. You can tell when your partner’s close, but you’ll never know _exactly_ when to stop or keep going, so don’t try to guess. Just let it happen.”

Q breathed out slowly, fighting a shiver. Q had never really understood gun kinks, but what Bond was doing now was absolutely unfair. The gentle touches and encouragement from Bond didn’t help, of course — Q had to fight from pressing himself backwards and doing something stupid. It was true that he hadn’t been interested in men since uni, but there was something undeniably sensual and primal about Bond that was hard to miss.

Finally, Q pulled the trigger.

The recoil was harder than he expected, but Bond’s hands tightened down on his shoulders, keeping him from flinching too badly. It felt like a punch in the shoulder, but the impact was blunt, not bruising. He wouldn’t want to fire the weapon all day — no wonder why Bond was wincing, no matter how he tried to hide it — but it really wasn’t that bad at all. In fact, it was pretty damned exhilarating, being in control of such a powerful event.

“Wow,” he said when he looked back at Bond, smiling. “That was fun.”

Bond grinned back and nodded at the target. “Do it again, now that you know what to expect.”

Q repeated the process, settling in, positioning himself carefully behind the rifle. He pushed away the sex metaphor because, really, that was nothing but an unhelpful distraction, and Q didn’t need any more of those. He pulled the trigger lightly, but despite knowing what to expect, had the same reaction. His exhale came out as a nervous, adrenaline-fuelled laugh.

“Not bad,” Bond said, supporting the rifle’s stock so Q could slip off the stool. “I have heavier rounds, if you’re interested. I’m going to switch to them after they clear the range to reset targets.”

“ _Heavier_ rounds?” Q asked, flexing his hand. “What for? Will that make the recoil even more impressive?”

With an amused laugh, Bond said, “These are .223 rounds. It also fires 5.56. High fragmentation creating a hydrostatic shock effect in soft tissue, better armour penetration. So yes — more impressive recoil, though that’s not the point of it.”

“Are you going to dissolve the target in one shot?” Q asked curiously, heading back over to his gun and starting the process of reloading his magazine.

“If necessary.” Bond snugged the rifle into his shoulder, hands caressing the barrel as he moved into position. He leaned forward into the rifle and fired several rounds in quick succession without the concern for aiming that he’d shown before — not that every shot didn’t hit within the target anyway.

“I meant the paper target,” Q said, watching Bond’s comfortable expertise and the thoughtless flex of muscle. He wondered when it would be actually necessary to shred a human target, but turned to aim and fire his own weapon before he allowed himself to think about some of the more messy hits of MI6 operatives.

After firing the last round, Bond sat back up and arched his back, rolling his right shoulder with another flicker of tension. “No, it’ll just penetrate paper and plywood. It’s —” He cut off as a loud whistle sounded, echoing through the range. “There’s the signal. Drop your magazine and open the action,” he said, moving his rifle to lay on its side at a slight angle, muzzle pointed downrange. “Help me move one of the targets back.”

Q ejected his magazine, cleared the chamber, and locked the slide open in slow but careful succession. He set the gun down carefully and followed Bond down the range. “You were shot in your shoulder,” he observed. “Are you all right?”

Squinting against the warming sun, Bond nodded. “It’s a hazard. A hospital was out of the question at the time. I think there are still fragments in there,” he said casually as he walked to the target. It was a half-sheet of plywood mounted in a frame, supported in two weathered, cracked PVC pipes that had been sunk into the hard ground. He took hold of one side, prepared to lift it out of the pipes.

Q cast quick glances at Bond, raising his eyebrows in slight disbelief as he walked to the other side of the plywood. “Sounds painful. And slightly masochistic to shoot that giant gun of yours when you have sharp metal floating around in the muscle that takes the brunt of the recoil. Can’t you get it removed now?”

Bond laughed sharply and lifted, catching the back of the frame when it tipped, off-balance. As they started walking downrange, he said, “If I had the time to recuperate from surgery, I suppose. I’m busy. I’ll get around to it eventually.”

“And people think _I’m_ self-destructive,” Q said, gripping the plywood tightly, wondering if he were going to have splinters when he was done. “I’d like to ask who shot you, but I don’t suppose that’s wise. You must have an enviable security clearance.”

Only the faintest tightening at Bond’s eyes betrayed any reaction at all. “I’m freelance. Outside chain of command.” He lifted the target at the next set of pipes and said, “We’ll take it to the last set. I need distance.”

“Freelance. Maybe that’s what I should do, instead of working at a company like AT&T or some R&D organisation,” Q said thoughtfully, following Bond’s actions. “It must be nice, taking only the work you want, going only where you want, when you want to.”

“I never lack for business,” Bond agreed. “And I don’t have to report to anyone but my clients. No bloody personnel reviews or request forms for leave. But there’s no security in it. Not exactly a regular paycheck.” He glanced at Q a bit more thoughtfully.

“But it’s freedom,” Q said, watching his feet to make sure he didn’t kick the plywood, wondering if Bond had something in mind for him. “And I’m really very good at what I do. One of the best. I doubt I’d lack for work.”

“Securing networks and communications? Encryption? That sort of thing?” Bond asked as they finally reached the farthest set of pipes, all the way back by the mountain of rocks and earth serving as a backstop.

“Among other things. My speciality is repelling attacks. You wouldn’t know it to look at me, but I’m actually an active player, not a passive one. The aggressive work is much more interesting — much less like plugging holes and more like making them in the first place, or making people suffer for daring to poke their fingers into them.” Q shot Bond a wicked smirk. “I also do some tinkering. Like the biometric scanner I’m thinking about building. For my master’s degree, which was in computer engineering, my final project and dissertation was on predicative behaviour camera use on auto-targeting for turret-mounted weapons systems. Now _that_ was fun.”

There it was — the interest Q had hoped to see. Bond grinned, slow and fierce, as they settled the target in place. “What about taking down security?”

Q chuckled, smirking. “I haven’t met a system yet that I couldn’t coax into easy, purring submission. Not that I can exactly put that on my resume, of course, which is why I’m stuck being the shiny intern at AT&T.”

“Give me your contact information,” Bond said, looking towards the firing booths as two short whistles sounded. He broke into an easy, fast jog. Q stayed a few steps behind, trying not to blush as he admired the denim-wrapped muscles in front of him.

“Sure. I don’t suppose you have any ideas for tech upgrades of heavy weaponry that are Ph.D. dissertation worthy?” Q looked down at his gun and picked up the magazine to finish reloading it. “Your guns, my tech and programming. Though, in the interest of full disclosure, I often break the first piece of gear I experiment with.”

“Careful,” Bond said, throwing a teasing grin Q’s way as they reached the shooting station. “You’re tempting me to lock you in an R&D lab somewhere so I can send you projects. I’ve never had a pet genius before.”

“I’ve never been anyone’s pet genius before. Does it come with perks?” Q looked up with a crooked smile and a laugh, raising an eyebrow.

Bond’s look turned slightly speculative, as if he were considering Q in a new way. “Depends how good you are at negotiating,” he said as he sat back down and picked up his bag.

For as much as Q had worried that he wouldn’t be very good at light seduction, it was surprisingly easy to turn, body language open, and smile suggestively. Perhaps it was how damn good Bond looked in jeans and a tight black T-shirt. “I can be flexible, if it’s worth it.”

Bond started stacking boxes of ammo on the table. “Prove it, and you’ll never want for anything again.”

Q hid his satisfied grin as he turned away to start loading the next magazine. Little did Bond know how close to the truth that was. Play the rogue genius. Be seductive. Bring a wayward Double O back into the fold.

Finally be promoted to the Quartermaster programme.


	5. Chapter 5

**Sunday, 10 February 2013**

Q had never been a hunter. He’d never understood the thrill that field agents seemed to get out of their operations; he’d always found the idea tedious, in fact, compared to the ease with which he could affect the world from behind a keyboard. He’d never been interested in manipulating a person, rather than a system. Until now.

Shooting had been an adrenaline-infused challenge not just to his hand-eye coordination but to his intelligence. To hit his target, he had to _think_ in new ways. He had to control his body and factor in external influences like wind and distance and his own eyes trying to trick him. And he had to _not_ get distracted watching Bond.

It wasn’t even sexuality. As Q watched Bond shoot, all he could think was that he himself looked much the same way when he was at a computer — the same fierce concentration, the same subtle joy, the same absolute confidence that he could overcome any challenge. It was entrancing to watch, and he couldn’t help but feel a measure of resentment for his past girlfriends who’d jealously complained of the time he spent with his computer rather than them. How had they not noticed, not been fascinated by Q when he was in that zone, that mindset — flying free, high on the thrill of competence and self-made adventure?

Now, he sat on the floor in the middle of his computer screens, executing due diligence, monitoring his own security while trying to track Bond as if he really were taking the job offer seriously. And as he watched his automatic search-and-monitor processes run themselves, he understood — really _understood_ , viscerally and completely — the thrill of the hunt. He felt predatory, ready to pounce on Bond (or, more accurately, his tech minion) at the first hint of a data trail.

Not that he was worried that a background check of his own manufactured identity would turn up anything suspicious. Q had been _very_ thorough in his construction of his identity, including a barely-hackable university email account with correspondence from a variety of students and faculty at CalPoly. He’d even gone so far as to carefully leave his family and criminal history suspiciously blank, which would scream erasure to anyone competent. A twenty-something hacker without a single arrest or parking ticket? Q grinned at the thought of Bond’s pleased reaction to that little mystery.

There wasn’t much to do as he waited, so as he sat, he carefully cleaned his gun. Bond had told him in no uncertain terms that he’d expected Q to buy a gun cleaning kit and render the Glock spotless when Bond saw it next — and Q fully intended to do so. He was rather enjoying playing the part of eager-to-please pet genius.

Q was just packing away the kit when an alert finally chimed. Predictably, someone was hacking his fake university email account. Q tucked the gun away and pounced on his keyboard, blood thrumming with the thrill of the chase. He didn’t care _who_ was on the other side of the playing field, but he did want an address. Bond would probably expect nothing less.

Several easily decimated firewalls and laughable deflection programs later, Q had an address. He was setting up net and comms chatter surveillance and alerts, wondering if he should just tell Bond how dangerously incompetent his tech minion was, when he intercepted a call to local police.

Gunfire. At Bond’s location.

Q’s only thought was to get onsite and see what he could do to control the situation. If he were back home, he’d quash the alert, lock up the phone that had been used to call emergency services, and erase all records of the call. Unfortunately, he had no backdoor access to the local police; the address wasn’t even in Phoenix but Chandler. He needed eyes on the ground, and without a proper field agent — he didn’t dare risk sending Alec — that meant he needed to go himself.

The address was twenty minutes away. He suspected he was snapped on traffic cameras at least three times, but he could take care of that later. He followed GPS directions to the southeast, out of the main part of the city and into a surprisingly rural area of farmland dotted here and there with one-mile-square housing developments like neat tan prison camps.

After eighteen interminable minutes, the GPS led him to an older house on one of the farms, rather than one of the cookie-cutter homes set in a walled community. The area was cordoned off with emergency vehicles, and Q’s breath caught when he saw an ambulance parked on the gravel side of the road, lights off. Either there no one was wounded badly enough to require transport or any victims had died.

He moved his car around the corner, out of sight of the police, and got onto his laptop, glad he’d secured his wireless connection. He was able to break into the police communications, though it took him some time to decipher the local accents, mangled as they were by crackling and static and unfamiliar slang. He left the comms playing in the background and switched to monitoring local mobile towers; it was unfortunate again that he wasn’t at MI6, where he’d have easy access to satellites in case Bond was on a more secure line — assuming he wasn’t dead.

He endured over ten tense minutes of far too much mobile chatter and texting before he intercepted a text message sent from one unfamiliar local number to another — one that raised his suspicions:

_Appr from E. Avoid contact. Church W carpark._

Q sat back, staring at the laptop. Approach from the east. Avoid contact. Church, west... ‘Carpark’, not ‘parking lot’. British.

He opened Google Maps and quickly pulled up a local view. There were two churches around the farmland, and only one had a carpark on the west side, and it was off a main east-west road.

Q navigated the car carefully to the location Bond requested, staying under the speed limit but driving confidently, not giving himself away as a non-local. He drove into the carpark but didn’t pull up directly to the building itself. Instead, he took one of the last available parking spaces in the west carpark. He hoped Bond wasn’t actually in the church — and for a moment he pictured some mad hostage drama, but surely Bond was too discreet for that.

He slipped on his messenger bag, sliding the Glock into the front pocket where he could reach it easily if he needed to. Somewhere inside, he thought he should be panicking at his sudden immersion into fieldwork — evading local police to find a mercenary hiding out in American church was very ‘action movie’. Even more concerning was the fact that he had his weapon, and was fairly confident he’d use it, if necessary. But he dismissed the odd surge of disbelief. Hacker or not, Q was MI6. He didn’t need to process. He just needed to act in the best interests of his mission.

The clicking of the door seemed exceptionally loud when he opened it. He got out and stood next to his car to scan the expanse of tarmac. The late afternoon sunlight cast an ominous ruddy glow over the scene, as if it were awash in blood.

As was characteristic of Arizona, most of the cars were pickup trucks and SUVs. Just as Q was considering walking away from the car to get a better look around, he saw Bond walk into view from behind a brick-walled skip. He was still in his black T-shirt, carrying his leather jacket bundled under his left arm. In contrast to his neat appearance this morning, the T-shirt was untucked, hanging over his hips.

Q couldn’t read his expression behind his sunglasses. As he watched Bond approach, he was forcefully reminded of the warning edge in Bond’s words and body language when they’d had dinner together outside the gun show, and the deadly confidence he’d had when he was working with the ridiculously massive rifle.

Bond could kill him. Probably _would_ kill him, right now, with no effort whatsoever, if he thought of Q as a threat.

“You need a better tech,” Q said, watching Bond warily, fingers brushing over the Glock in the pocket of his messenger bag. “He should have been able to keep the authorities at bay for you.”

“She’s dead,” Bond said bluntly. He walked around to the passenger side of Q’s car, never looking away from him, and paused for a moment before he tugged expectantly on the back door handle.

Q only hesitated for a moment longer before unlocking the car and climbing in. He had no idea if Bond was bleeding or not, but the death of his tech... that was ominous. “I’m sorry,” he said, watching Bond in the rearview mirror. Instead of throwing his jacket in the back seat, he got in and closed the door.

“Head east,” Bond told him, looking down. Q heard the soft click of typing on a BlackBerry.

Q chuckled a little. “Only because you asked me nicely. Do you want me to check that for you, or do you know how you were compromised?”

“It’s new. I always have spares,” Bond answered. He shifted over towards the centre of the back seat, moving a little stiffly. “Take the next left after the main intersection.”

“I have my tablet and laptop with me, if you need me to help,” Q offered as urban sprawl began to fade into farmland. “What on earth grows here? Or is it cattle?”

“No cattle around here. It’s all corn and cotton. Flower farms out west, of all things,” Bond answered, leaning back. He took a deep breath that sounded strained before he twisted to look back over his shoulder. The car lurched as the road went from asphalt to gravel that quickly turned into dirt.

“Are you all right?” Q asked quietly. “I don’t have a first aid kit, but I can improvise.”

Bond met Q’s eyes in the rearview mirror and nodded. “Pull over.”

Q raised his eyebrows but did as he was asked, hoping there wasn’t any debris or broken farm equipment on the side of the road to puncture a tyre. He didn’t like the idea of being stranded out here at all.

He put the car in park and turned, only to find himself staring at a handgun. Beyond the wide black muzzle, Bond’s cold blue eyes watched him intently, without a hint of pain or injury. “Care to explain how you found me?” Bond asked quietly.

Q took a deep breath, fighting panic. He had been expecting this, if he were honest with himself, but that didn’t make the fear any less potent. “Sorry to sully the name of your dead tech, but she was sloppy. I tracked you when she ran my background check.” He fought not to move, not to run — he knew damn well he wouldn’t make it anyway. The only thing to do was convince.

“And the church?” Bond asked steadily. “How’d you know to be there?”

Q narrowed his eyes. “Genius, remember? I intercepted your text and made a logical assumption. The location is within walking distance of your house, and you didn’t have to go through the police to get there.”

“Why did you come for me? Why get involved?”

“You’re my friend,” Q said with a shrug.

Bond huffed out a rough laugh and lowered the gun. Q closed his eyes in relief and sucked in a breath, glad it had been that simple. Bond leaned back and said, “Give me five minutes to make sure I’m not going to bleed out. Then we can move.”

“You scared me,” Q accused, relaxing. “Do you need anything? My overshirt or belt?”

With another laugh, Bond asked, “ _Now_ you want to strip for me? I should be fine. If I haven’t passed out yet, I’m probably not going to.” He pulled up the T-shirt, and Q saw a wound scored across the left side of his chest, too ragged to be a knife cut. It was scabbing over, though fresh blood trickled from a couple of spots where the scab had adhered to the shirt.

Unconcerned, Bond pulled the shirt back down and turned his attention to his jacket. He was carrying the rifle from the shooting range, broken down into pieces, with a couple of magazines hooked to the carrying strap. He snapped it back together with loud, sharp _clicks_. He pushed one of the magazines into place and pulled back the bolt, chambering a round, and Q remembered what Bond had said about the 5.56 ammunition shredding tissue.

He put the weapon down on the back seat and covered it with his jacket. “We’re good.”

“I don’t know that I’d go that far,” Q muttered, digging through his messenger bag. He pulled out a bottle of water, a handful of the plasters he always carried with him, and the length of wrist wrap he always carried around for his carpal tunnel. His hand brushed against the Glock as he worked, and he wondered if he should have drawn it in response to Bond’s gun — but decided he wouldn’t have had time to do much more than twitch before Bond would have shot him.

“Here,” Q said, passing the magpie’s collection back. “It’s not much, but it’s all I have.”

A look of absolute confusion came to Bond for just an instant. “Thanks,” he said quietly, taking the handful. Up close, Q saw blood under his nails and over his scraped, battered knuckles.

Q smiled softly. “Hospital? I can make sure you don’t pop up in any databases or set off any alarms.”

Bond laughed. “I walk into a hospital, they’ll find far too much to play with. I’ve got supplies at the safehouse.” He pulled off his T-shirt and looked at Q. “You’re going to need to stay with me for a while.”

Q let his eyes travel over Bond’s chest. He didn’t know which reaction was the strongest — concern over the wounds, fascination with the scars, or admiration at the well-formed muscles. Experimentation in college had never been like this. Hell, he wasn’t sure anyone at his university had even come close to looking like this.

He cleared his throat. “You need me to set up a new network for you?” he said, turning back to the steering wheel. “Or do you want to make sure I’m really not a bad guy? I can drop you off at a bus station or cab company if it makes you feel better.”

“If they know about you, you could already be compromised, and they won’t hesitate to break you to find me,” Bond said bluntly. “And if you’re working for them, I won’t. The first option is the better choice. Now that I know they’re local, I can protect you.”

“As much fun as it sounds like to let you break me,” Q said with a nervous chuckle, “I can assure you I’m not working for anyone but AT&T. And you don’t have to worry about me. I can take care of myself. I don’t want to get in your way.” And he didn’t necessarily want to get caught up in the darker nature of Bond’s mercenary work, but that would have been a foolish thing to say.

“Congratulations. You just quit your job.” Bond folded his black T-shirt and poured water onto it, and then started dabbing at the wound on his ribs. The motion made his right shoulder flex, drawing Q’s eye to the layers of scars there, where he said he’d been shot. The scarring was ugly; it had been stitched, but badly. “Survive this and you’ll be rich enough to tell AT&T to bugger off.”

Q pulled onto the road, “Where to? And what exactly is this?”

Instead of answering, Bond gave him an address to put into the GPS. He used a corner of his shirt to dry his skin before he taped a plaster across the worst of the bleeding. “We’ll be safe there. You and I are the only ones who know that address.”

“Who is after you?” Q asked again. “And should I stop at a chemist’s?”

“We’re in America. It’s a drug store here,” Bond said, looking up at Q with a hint of suspicion again. “As for who it is, you don’t need to know. I’ll keep you safe, and once I deal with them, you can go back to your old life, if you want. You’ll have enough money to last until you get another position.”

“Keep me safe,” Q said with a wry grin to hide his anxiety. Though he was trying very hard not to show it, he couldn’t help but feel a slight twinge of discomfort at the idea of going to some random safehouse for days, without access to his technology. He had his laptop, tablet, and phone, but he had no idea what sort of connection the safehouse would have. And Bond was already suspicious. He might not let Q out of his sight long enough to text Alec or do anything useful.

But he didn’t think he was in any _danger_ — not from Bond, anyway. The man was naturally paranoid. It was understandable. Q just wouldn’t do anything to trigger that paranoia. So he tried to relax and asked, “Drug store or not?”

“No. Intel’s more important than alcohol swabs.” He laughed and put on his jacket over his bare chest, zipping it up most of the way. He covered the rifle with his T-shirt instead. “You’ll be fine, Q. Just try not to get us pulled over. Thank god it’s not Monday rush hour.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Sunday, 10 February 2013**

The safehouse was an odd rectangular house that looked like it was covered in melted clay. It was far west of civilisation, almost tucked against the base of the mountains that formed one side of the valley. Q actually had to drive over a moat to get to it, though the moat was an unimpressive three-foot-wide concrete ditch with water running sluggishly along the bottom, presumably used for agriculture. The property was surrounded by white split rail fencing and actually had horses next door, in a grassy field. The safehouse itself had no grass — just rocks and deadly cacti and trees that Q noted were strategically planted outside each window like nature’s own security system.

Bond had Q pull up to the garage door. Then he got out and put a code into the controller, opening the door for Q to drive inside. Bond followed and hit a control button on the wall to close the garage door. Q tried to ignore the feeling of being trapped.

Once Q was out of the car, Bond led him into a laundry room. “Stay here,” he said, and ducked into the sling for his rifle. He left the bloody T-shirt on top of the washing machine and went through the far door, into the house itself. When he opened the door, Q smelled fresh air, not stale or dusty.

Q stood in the middle of the room, turning slowly to take everything in, but not really paying attention to it. It occurred to him, in a sudden rush, that he had absolutely no idea what the hell he was doing.

He was trapped in a clay house with a military-trained assassin on high alert. And Q was a liar. A damn _liar_ , and not a very good one. How the hell was he supposed to get through this without getting killed?

“Fuck,” he muttered, tipping his head back toward the ceiling and closing his eyes. “Bloody buggering fuck.”

It was ten minutes before Bond returned, rifle now slung casually over his shoulder, muzzle-down. “We’re clear,” he said, leaving the door open as he went back into the house.

Q was surprised to find the house was open and airy, with wide windows, rounded interior walls, and a massive riverstone fireplace. Much of the interior seemed to be one space — kitchen off to the side with an island cooktop, a dining area by sliding glass doors that led out onto a patio, and two furniture groupings with sofas, one facing the fireplace, one by a large telly hanging on the wall. It wasn’t precisely a fortified compound.

“Get whatever you like,” Bond said, waving a hand in the direction of the kitchen as he walked through an archway on the far side of the great room. Q could just see a glass and steel desk with a laptop.

“Tea?” Q asked hopefully, walking over to the kitchen. “Or if not, I’ll make coffee. Would you like some?” He didn’t bother trying to hide his professional assessment of the technology. So far, the television and the laptop on the desk were all he could find — the laptop didn’t seem to have an external wireless card nor a cable plugged into it.

“Either would be good,” Bond said, typing — not rapidly, but at least it wasn’t two-fingered pecking at the keyboard. Then he leaned back with a creak of his chair as he unzipped his jacket. “You said you know encryption.”

Q started digging through the cupboards, looking for any evidence of tea — preferably _not_ the kind they served at Starbucks, unless the flavour improved when using only one tea bag instead of three. But he came up empty handed, finding only pasta and pasta sauce, bread, soup, and other basic groceries. A search of the freezer, however, revealed a tin of coffee. Q sighed in relief.

“I do,” he said, taking a deep breath of the strong coffee smell. Q turned to coffee as a second resort, but he _loved_ the smell. He started the process of making it, only pausing for a minute to hunt down the filters. “What do you need?”

“I have encrypted files of the security footage at the other safehouse, and all of our network traffic. It should tell me if my systems there were compromised — or give me a starting point to figure out how they found me, at least. _If_ it’s safe to access.”

“Sure,” Q said with a roll of his shoulders. He walked over to the laptop, brushing against Bond as he pushed him aside. Bond’s hand twitched, and Q realised he was still carrying the rifle, but he made no move to raise it. Reminding himself to be careful, Q cast a quick look at the laptop. He could probably have used his own laptop, but it wasn’t worth the risk yet. Not only did he not want to show Bond his laptop; he didn’t want Bond to think he was doing anything untoward. “I should have made more coffee.”

“Everything’s cloud-based,” Bond said, pulling the chair over for Q to sit. He stayed where he could see the screen. “I don’t want to download anything; I just want to view the footage and see what the fuck happened. How would you make that safe?”

“Do I have to explain, or can I just do?” Q asked, thinking about his own cloud-based storage, and the various programs he had stashed there for just such occasions as these. Well, not one where he was stuck with an assassin trying to find the origins of a hit squad, exactly, but where he needed to work on an unfamiliar laptop.

“Explain.” Bond smiled humourlessly. “Let’s not rush into any commitments.”

 

~~~

 

Q stared at the screen, things going a bit fuzzy around the edges, and he dug in his bag for eye drops. He’d managed to not alarm Bond with his explanation of how he could use the file access logs to show him if anyone had cracked his encryption, and Bond had more or less left him alone while he worked. Bond’s tech may not have been the best at covering their tracks, but she’d done a damn fine job of ensuring thorough file logging. Q went over the logs in detail and found no trace of outside access.

He called Bond over and explained everything. Bond’s questions were surprisingly sharp and relevant, which made Q a touch nervous. Was he pretending to be more of a tech novice than he actually was? The thought of getting caught out lying or glossing anything over made Q shudder, and he went into perhaps more of a detailed explanation than he might otherwise have done.

Finally, though, Bond nodded. “All right. Should be safe to pull down the files.”

“All yours.” Q got up, cracked his back, and went to the kitchen to get his fifth cup of coffee.

Bond claimed the seat with a muttered, “Thanks.” Q listened to him clicking the touchpad for a couple of minutes before he started swearing, quietly but emphatically, in what Q suspected was German.

Q looked over as Bond got up, carrying the rifle in one hand. He’d got rid of his jacket, and as he began searching the cupboards, Q could see the holstered black handgun at the small of his back. Q noticed that he had far fewer scars on his back, and that there was no exit wound to match the bullet wound high on the right side of his chest.

Finally, Bond located the liquor cupboard. He took down a bottle of whisky and asked, “Did you want any?” as he went to get a glass.

“I probably should quit with the coffee,” Q confessed, looking ruefully down at his cup. He waved at the computer. “Do you need me to do anything for you?”

Bond went still as if considering. He frowned down at the counter, closing his eyes for a moment. Then he poured himself a drink and said, “I need to lay a trap. I need to find out how they found me, and let them find me again, on my terms.”

Q walked over to stand next to Bond, close but not touching. Yet. “Do you have any ideas?”

“We’re in the fucking desert,” Bond said with a cold grin. He finished his drink without pause and poured himself another one. “If I can get them somewhere private, I can find out what they know — though I have my suspicions. But defence first. If my lines of communication are compromised, so’s my reputation, and I’ll have even more people gunning for me. Can you figure it out?”

“There are a few things I can do,” Q said, refraining from giving the natural, instant yes that he wanted to. “I can track anyone who compromised your network. I can run facial rec on the bad guys, not just to try and identify them, but also track where they’ve been and who they’ve been talking to. I can also manipulate and track whatever tech they’re employing, once I figure out what they’ve got.” He looked at Bond and shrugged. “But as impressive as that sounds, I’m only as good as the information I have to work with. If they’ve been careful, I may not come up with anything. Unlikely, though.”

Bond picked up his glass and stared into it, though he didn’t seem to be focusing on anything outside his own thoughts. “I can give you two names that might be a start.” He looked at Q. “Except as soon as I do, I can no longer trust you. How do you suggest we get around that?”

Q raised his eyebrow. “You do realise how absolutely ridiculous that sounds, right?” He nudged Bond gently with his elbow. “Don’t tell me anything. In case I didn’t make it clear before, I’m relatively intelligent. Very intelligent, actually. Let me do what I can with what I’ve got before we stray into ‘I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you’ territory.”

This time, Bond’s laugh was genuine. “Go ahead,” he invited, gesturing back at the office. “I’m going to shower. If I’m not back in an hour, I bled out. Take the guns and leave the state.”

“Forget the guns, I want that scope. Do you have any idea how much my targeting system could be improved with it?” Q walked back to the coffee pot, deciding alcohol probably wasn’t going to be conducive to his work. Neither would thinking of Bond naked in the shower, but he didn’t seem to be able to do anything about that particular line of thought, so Q gave up on trying to suppress it.

 

~~~

 

In significant contrast to the search he’d run when he first arrived in Arizona, this time he had nothing but Bond’s laptop, his own laptop (which he pulled from his bag as soon as Bond went into the shower), and his mobile. He was absolutely not above cheating — he used the resources of his servers back at the hotel to do the vast majority of the facial rec scanning, Bond’s laptop to run scans and traces on his network, and his own laptop to sort through whatever he found.

He was absolutely absorbed in his work, sparing only the occasional bits of attention for what was going on around him. When he finally did look up, he saw Bond had returned from the shower, clean-shaven and dressed distractingly in his blue jeans and plasters on the left side of his ribs. Q only allowed himself occasional appreciative glances in between scanning images, and only long enough to not be caught.

Once he’d identified the last of the usable faces from the security footage, he turned his attention to watching it all in one go, just to get a sense of how the opposition fought, moved, and coordinated. He’d been so focused on individual faces the first time around, he hadn’t actually seen any of the fighting.

It took him several viewings to put together a coherent, terrifying whole. The attack had been, as far as Q could determine, perfectly executed. Five attackers had entered — two at the front door, two at the back door, one through the garage. They thought they’d entered stealthily, but something alerted Bond’s hacker, a girl who was very much Bond’s ‘type’, damned near a female version of Q, though with shorter hair. She shouted something and grabbed at a revolver to defend herself, before a shot was fired through the wall with unerring accuracy. Q tried not to watch, but his mind automatically calculated from the timestamps on the security footage that it took her four minutes to stop struggling for breath.

Bond engaged the first of the attackers with a knife; Q noted that there were several guns spread over newspapers in the dining room. Even slowing the footage, Q had no idea precisely how Bond managed to drop the first attacker, save that it was bloody and fast. The second went down to a brutal, almost movie-style punch to the side of the head, though Q saw him stand up later.

Bond’s first stop was the dining room, where he fired several shots from the handgun. He dropped one attacker and winged another, buying himself time to rush into the office. He paused for no more than a second, looking at the dead girl, before he threw her chair out the window, followed by the pieces of his disassembled rifle. He turned, fired two more shots through the doorway, and then dove out as another shot penetrated the wall. That was the shot that caught him across the ribs.

The attackers split up, with one going after Bond and the other two retrieving their dead and injured. They were gone in seconds.

The whole thing lasted just over five minutes — too bloody quick to believe. Q stared at the black screen for several long minutes after it was over, telling himself that he absolutely no reason to be surprised. He worked for MI6, he worked with agents in the abstract, and he saw their mission reports. He even occasionally watched them spar. But none of that actually prepared him for the force of violence he watched as Bond brutally repelled the attack.

Q found himself again wondering just how stupid he was, being trapped here, lying to someone who could be that deadly that quickly. God, if Bond decided to kill him, Q wouldn’t even see it coming. The thought was deeply unnerving.

He kept his tablet open on the table at his right hand, tapping out what he found into a notebook app as he worked. By the time Bond started heating up dinner, Q had identified three mobile phones, one laptop, and the name of the coffee shop they frequented for wifi access.

His grin was feral. They were in trouble now.

“Good news?” Bond asked, sliding a bowl onto the glass desk between the two laptops. Chili — spicy, by the smell.

“Some idiots don’t know when to keep it in their pants,” Q said, still grinning at the computers while running a scan of the coffee shop’s wireless network. “Their mobile technology, that is. I’ll have them in no time, now.”

“Do you have anything yet? Names or faces? I want confirmation,” Bond said as he walked around the desk, holding his own bowl. He leaned against Q’s chair, looking down at both laptops.

“Faces, yes. Names, not yet. But I will soon.” It took only a matter of moments to pull up the shop’s wireless access logs and only moments more to identify the Mac addresses of the mobiles and laptop, based on timestamps and matching it to their specific hardware.

Smirking, Q pulled up a terminal window and logged into AT&T with the fake login he’d generated as part of his cover.

“Jack Trivet, Matt Parker, and Jess Smith,” he declared triumphantly. “Those were the three with mobiles.” He pulled up their security camera photographs to show Bond. “It will take me longer to do the laptop.”

“No one significant,” Bond said, leaning his left hand on the desk to study the photos. He tapped the photo of Parker and said, “I hired him four years ago for a job. All three are contract workers. I need who hired them.”

Q found himself holding his breath as Bond leaned over, only inches away. Images of the security footage brutality and his sensual behaviour at the shooting range warred in his imagination. “Well, uh, why don’t you stop distracting me, so I can focus and find it quicker?”

Bond laughed sharply. “I’m _feeding_ you — which seems to be a habit.” But thankfully he stood up, only to briefly put a hand on Q’s shoulder. “Let me know if you find anything else,” he said before he left for the great room. A moment later, Q heard the telly come on in the middle of a show. No, a movie, Q recognised, immediately latching onto the dialogue. It was _The Avengers_ — specifically, the fight in the woods between iron Man and Thor.

 _The Avengers_ , Q thought, suddenly remembering that Alec had been watching it back at the hotel just a few days ago. Two best friends separated for so long, though their tastes were still similar. It was heartbreaking, Q thought, and he resolved to do everything he could to reunite them.

The next half hour found Q trying to track down anything he could find about the laptop — even with a Mac address, it was pain in the arse to track the machine down. It didn’t show up in any of the databases he searched — including the manufacturer’s own inventory lists. Which was... odd. Either the man had an excellent hacker of his own to erase his tracks (in which case, how did he or she not warn the idiot to stay off public Wi-Fi?) or he was working for an organisation that routinely required the manufacturers to wipe the Mac addresses from their inventory lists. Feeling increasingly uncomfortable, Q opened a window in the Ministry of Defence tech inventory databases.

And there it was.

Q stared at the entry — Captain Davis, Royal Navy, Special Boat Section — for much longer than was strictly necessary. He couldn’t believe it. The MOD had sanctioned a hit on Bond? How the _hell_ could that be possible?

Q’s assignment had come from M herself. Did the MOD have intel that M didn’t have? The good guys versus a good guy? Two loyal forces battling each other out?

What the fuck was he supposed to do now?


	7. Chapter 7

**Sunday, 10 February 2013**

Ultimately, Q decided that the best approach was the one in which he stayed on track to achieve his mission. Bond’s little speech about trust, however, was still too fresh in his mind for him to simply wave Bond over and say, “Look what I found!” He didn’t want Bond to perceive him as a threat, and he knew better than to pretend ignorance at what the implications were.

So, Q took the least threatening approach he could think of. He grabbed the laptop, moved to stand briefly in front of Bond between the couch and the telly, and sat down on the floor in front of him.

“Found him,” he said quietly.

Bond sat up, eyes going sharp. When he moved, Q saw that he had the black rifle with the tan scope on the sofa beside him, half-hidden by how he’d been sprawled. “Good work. Let’s see,” he said, leaning down, elbows on his knees.

Q looked down at the laptop, leaving the MOD inventory list open in the background, and pulled up the fuzzy ATM camera shot that had led him to identify the laptop. He turned the computer around for Bond to see. “I don’t know if you can do a visual verification from the crappy shot, but when I found the laptop, I traced it back to a Ministry of Defence employee. His name is Captain Davis.”

Tension went through Bond, subtle but still electric. “I knew it,” he said softly. He leaned back, resting one hand on the arm of the sofa. The other fell to his rifle, fingers idly running over the stock. “I need verification on who he’s working for.”

“I don’t mean to be overly inquisitive,” Q said hesitantly, eyeing how Bond was petting the rifle, “but have we fallen into the ‘I’d have to kill you’ realm of information? I’d just like a warning, so I have a sporting chance.” Q’s grin was wry, but he was sure his tension was as bright as a neon sign.

Bond laughed brusquely. “Close, but no. Let’s just say that Her Majesty’s government may not be all that you learned in uni. Do you have any issues tracking him down for me?”

Q knew damned well Bond wasn’t asking about technical difficulties, and it was useless to pretend that he wasn’t uncomfortable with the idea. “Why would the MOD want you dead?” he asked instead, thinking it would be a perfectly reasonable question from some random British hacker who didn’t know anything about Bond.

Instead of taking offence, Bond looked thoughtfully in the direction of the telly. He picked up the remote and paused the movie; the sudden silence was unnerving. “The MOD isn’t a single entity. When a soldier is given an order, he’s got to trust that the order came through proper channels. But there’s always a chance that the chain of command has been subverted.” He looked back down at Q. “Why is a captain in the Royal Navy working on American soil with mercenaries?”

“America being America, it might be the only way to get to you, even with official sanction,” Q pointed out. “Official being entirely off the record, of course. But you still didn’t answer my question.” He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders, meeting Bond’s gaze challengingly. _Proper British citizen_ , he reminded himself. “Were you a domestic terrorist, back home? Are you an enemy of England?”

Bond tensed, fingers twitching before he went still again. “No. I haven’t even been to England for five years. I’ve never taken a job that’s required me to act with aggression in any UK or Commonwealth territory.”

Q stared at Bond for a moment longer, as if debating whether he should believe the truth of that statement. “So you’re telling me that a captain of the Royal Navy wants you dead for personal reasons, and not official ones. And that if I help you, I’m not acting against England.” He narrowed his eyes. “I may be a hacker, Bond, but I’m not a bloody terrorist.”

Calmly, Bond nodded. He reached past Q, who tensed but didn’t flinch, and moved the coffee table over, and then gestured to the laptop, saying, “Put that here, so we can both see.”

Suddenly very glad that he was using Bond’s laptop and not his own, Q set it carefully down on the coffee table, then shuffled himself over so he was facing the opposite wall, enabling him to see both the laptop and Bond, without turning his back on either.

Not that it helped.

It was one thing to see evidence of Bond’s speed; it was entirely another to fall victim to it. Bond shouldn’t have been able to get up off the overstuffed, comfortable sofa without effort, much less stand, drag Q to his feet, and throw him down on that sofa so damned quickly.

Q’s chest hit the back as Bond wrenched his right arm up high, between his shoulderblades. Instinctively, Q tried to kick free — he’d had _some_ self-defence training at MI6, of course — until he felt the sharp sting of metal against his nape.

“Terrorist?” Bond asked, his voice sharp and cold.

“Fuck you,” Q hissed out even as he stilled, mind racing. “ _I’m_ not a bloody terrorist.”

For one endless moment, Bond didn’t move. The strain of the position kept Q from breathing deeply in an effort to calm himself. He considered and rejected every counterattack he could think of with his free left hand. If Bond so much as lost his balance, the knife would go right up under the back of Q’s skull.

Then Bond moved — away, thank god, releasing Q’s arm. As Q let his forehead tip down into the couch, closing his eyes and catching his breath, Bond stepped back from the sofa, watching him. “Neither am I.”

Breathless, Q pushed himself back up, turning away from the couch to glare at Bond. Now that he’d actually seen Bond’s speed and manoeuvrability, it was easy to calculate how long it would take him to go for the rifle, or kill Q with the knife he still had in his hand. Q’s position still wasn’t the best, trapped with the couch between him and his bag, where he’d left his gun in an effort to appear non-threatening. Without having more than basic training in hand-to-hand, or having a weapon at hand, Q was at a significant disadvantage. The odds, based on his calculations, were exceptionally poor.

“And you thought tackling me to the couch and holding a knife where it would instantly kill me if you so much as sneezed would be the best way to prove that?” he demanded with more courage than he felt.

To his infinite annoyance, Bond laughed. “Either I wanted to emphasise the fact that I’m _not_ a traitor, or I just wanted the excuse to get you under me. I’ll let you pick.”

Q watched him warily. If it meant that he wouldn’t get attacked again, Q would happily use his body as a way to tell Bond he didn’t need an excuse to pin him down. But, he knew better than to think sex would change anything about Bond’s more violent approaches to solving problems. He needed to deflect.

“Given that you have an obvious type, and I’m practically a clone of your former hacker, I —”

“An _obvious type_?” Bond interrupted, abruptly wrong-footed.

“Don’t forget, I’ve seen your surveillance footage. You think it could have escaped me that your last live-in tech looked just like me?” Q gave a wry smile. “Or, more appropriately, I look just like her? So both scenarios seem equally plausible.”

“You’re the one who hit on me!” Bond accused. “Though you did a bloody poor job of it.”

“Hit on you? I’m not gay, James. I thought you were nice. Interesting. Bloody hell,” Q pointedly turned his back on Bond to head back to his laptop.

Bond said nothing until Q was almost all the way to the office. Then, sounding much less aggressive, Bond called, “Find out who Davis is working for!” Then the movie started again.

Q sighed, and feeling like the physical distance might be too much to support their tentative understanding, he unplugged the chargers from the wall, and scooped his laptop, the tablet, the chargers, and his phone up in one messy pile, then let them fall with a clatter onto the coffee table next to Bond’s laptop. Bond glanced at him, frowning in confusion, as he plugged in the chargers, then settled comfortably on the couch next to him, careful to avoid sitting on the rifle.

Q folded his feet cross-legged on the couch, pulled Bond’s still-open laptop from the coffee table (ignoring his own for now), and angled the screen just a bit so Bond could see it from its position on Q’s legs. “I’ll find him,” Q said. “But I’m also going to make sure there isn’t any official order against you that he’s acting on. Fair?”

Bond turned to look at him. “If there is, are you going to tell me or just sneak out to use the loo and call whatever passes for the police in the middle of nowhere?”

“And lead them to their slaughter?” Q asked lightly. “Don’t forget, I’ve seen what that rifle can do.” He closed the still image of Davis and the MOD database, and called up his connection to the facial rec programs on his servers. “If I do, I’ll tell you, and you’ll let me go,” Q said. “Don’t attack British citizens, and I won’t do anything other than go back to my boring internship at AT&T and come up with another way to be allowed free rein to tinker with tech upgrades for guns.”

“You’re not a prisoner. If you leave, there’s just a very good chance that you’ll end up dead or interrogated and wishing you were dead.” Bond glanced at him. “And I wasn’t fucking her.”

Q looked over at Bond, watching him for a long moment before he nodded. “I’m sorry about her, by the way. And I’m not going to leave. As long as we’re not terrorists, we’re going to have all sorts of fun, and I won’t feel guilty about it.” He grinned as he opened a new command prompt window.

Bond sighed and slouched back into the couch, glancing down at the plasters stuck to his ribs. “This isn’t a game of hide-and-seek, Q. If you want in, I won’t say no, because I can use you, but once you’re in, there’s no getting out. Someone will _always_ be hunting for you, either because you were on the wrong side or you killed the wrong person or you’re just the fucking competition. I don’t do this for fun.”

“Just because you don’t do this for fun — which I’m not entirely certain I buy, by the way — doesn’t mean it isn’t a game,” Q pointed out. “And who says helping you with this particular chess game means a lifetime commitment? Hackers aren’t like mercenaries. We don’t have to let people see our faces.” Then, of course, he had to chuckle. “That’s not exactly true, actually. Freelance hackers, whether they take on jobs for the bad guys or not, don’t have long shelf lives. They tend to be targeted by governments, whether or not the government has been a victim, and tracked down in a modern version of a witch hunt. Sometimes they’re converted into nine-to-fivers, but that’s not generally the case.” Q, having been on the government side of things long enough to send dozens of names for further analysis, knew very well that there wasn’t much point in a rogue hacker setting up a retirement plan.

“There’s always someone bigger, better equipped, and with better intel,” Bond said, looking back at the movie, where Tony Stark was poking at Bruce Banner with a stick. “Short of that, if you stay, I’ll protect you. It’s just not a guarantee. Everybody dies.”

Q shot him a smirk. “You’re bloody morbid, even stating the obvious. I’ll stick to my fun-loving game approach until it happens. At least then, I’ll probably die laughing.”

Bond threw a speculative glance at him — not an _interested_ one, with a careful six inches between their bodies, but rather something curious and intent, as if he were trying to pick apart Q’s thoughts. “There are worse ways to die,” he agreed with a more relaxed smile as he turned back to the telly.

 

~~~

 

 _The Avengers_ was followed by a bland search of cable — no, satellite, Q realised as the channels moved up into the hundreds — with Bond periodically stopping to throw out criticisms (“Look at how he’s holding his gun? Fucking idiot would break his wrists!”) and tactical observations (“She’s dead. Blond, those heels, horror movie? She won’t last three minutes.”) He paused on news channels, local and international, and to check the weather. He skipped game shows and talk shows without hesitation and growled when he passed a cartoon. (“Modern cartoons are rubbish.”)

If not for the rifle leaning against his leg like a faithful dog waiting to be petted, it could have almost been sweetly domestic.

Eventually, Bond went back to the kitchen, where Q listened to him pressing buttons and slamming doors. As Q was trying to track down a Gmail account that he suspected was connected to Davis, Bond returned and switched on _28 Days Later_. He spent the initial minutes of the movie watching it suspiciously, sat through the credits, and then switched back to channel surfing until something in the kitchen beeped. This time, he returned with two reheated frozen dinners served with the lids peeled back and forks stuck in them.

After they’d both eaten in silence, Bond put his empty box and fork down on the coffee table. “I’m going to check the property. Shoot me when I come back in and I’ll be very upset with you,” he warned, slinging the rifle over his shoulder as he stood up.

Q rolled his eyes then gestured vaguely at his messenger bag, which was still back by the office. “Would you mind handing me my gun? Not that I don’t trust your ability to keep me safe, but it will make me feel better.” It was a blatant challenge, but Q asked as nonchalantly as possible, eyes on his work.

Bond walked off, saying, “She didn’t even want to learn how to use a gun. Said it wasn’t her thing. It wouldn’t have helped, given what happened, but — Well, you’re better off taking an active role in your own defence.” He returned and leaned over the back of the couch to put the Glock down beside Q.

Q looked up long enough to nod his thanks, but didn’t reach for the gun. Oddly enough, he felt a thrill of victory run through him, especially when a quick visual check confirmed that Bond hadn’t removed the magazine before bringing it over. “Be careful,” he said, before returning to his work. He listened without looking up as Bond let himself out the sliding glass doors onto the patio.

Then he thought about the patio. He thought about sight-lines and where the windows were and the angle of the laptop screen. Casually, as if he were relieved to finally have the room to spread out and work, he moved Bond’s laptop to the cushion beside him and picked up his own, knowing he had no keyloggers or screen-grab programs.

He’d found the house’s security network almost before doing anything else. Now, he accessed the outside cameras and searched the perimeter for Bond, making sure he wasn’t peeking in the window to watch Q or speaking to a security team or doing anything that might put Q at risk.

He wasn’t. He was walking along a flagstone path through the rocks, a shadow moving in the faint reflection of the house’s exterior floodlights that flickered on and off, activated by his movements. He had the rifle slung casually at his side and a cigarette in his free hand, and Q wondered how the fuck he wasn’t freezing, shirtless and barefoot.

Without further hesitation, Q leaned forward to snatch up his mobile. He had disabled all notifications, so though his screen was free of them, when he pulled up his texting program, there were nearly thirty alerts. Some were the text messages he’d programmed his server to send his way, comprised of fake chatter about classes and Californian weather — they would be useful in case he needed to flip back to them quickly. But most were from Alec, who was apparently not very happy with Q’s failure to check in.

_What’s going on?_  
 _Where are you?_  
 _Haven’t heard from you in a while._  
 _Call me._  
 _Really, CALL ME._  
 _Call me or I’m calling your mother._

And so on, devolving from neutral, professional suggestions to threats to have Q’s electricity turned off and his internet switched to dial-up. Q chuckled, not even certain that the UK _had_ dial-up any more, and composed a quick reply.

_With JB at safehouse. Lack of opportunity to update. Mission progressing nicely. Will check in again when something new to report. — Q_

The rather gratifying response came almost at once:

_Cheers. Charging dinner to your card, thanks. — A_

Q snickered, but didn’t bother with a reply. He permanently deleted all messages from Alec, casting a quick look to make sure Bond wasn’t on his way back in. He debated mentioning Davis to Alec, but decided against it. He didn’t want Alec to go off on a spree of revenge that might make his very old friend safe, but could ultimately end up costing Q the mission. He also debated using his mobile to send a request to MI6 to track and report on Davis, but that didn’t seem like a good idea either. As much as he would have liked to speed up his efforts, he didn’t want to be caught in the position of not being able to explain to Bond how he’d done anything. He held no illusions about the level of trust between them, despite Bond having given Q his gun.

Instead, he set the mobile back on the table, and resumed his work.

Bond came back after fifteen or so minutes, smelling of smoke. “Nothing bigger than a coyote, but don’t go out there.  You’re skinny enough to be prey for them,” he advised with a rough laugh as he crossed the great room. “If you get cold, there’s a thermostat somewhere. If you light a fire, try not to burn the house down. Sleep wherever you want.”

Q looked up at him in surprise before nodding. “Will the telly bother you, if I leave it on? I’m used to London and San Luis-O; I’m afraid I find silence rather unnerving.”

“That’s fine. Just keep the gunfire and crashing to a minimum, or you might wake me up unexpectedly. That,” Bond advised wryly, “could be very bad for all involved.”

“I’ll bet,” Q huffed with amusement, flashes of a naked Bond jumping out into the living room, giant rifle aimed at the telly, flashing through his imagination. “Good night.”

Bond stared at him for a couple of seconds. Then he nodded and threw a “Sleep well” over his shoulder before he disappeared into the sprawl that was the rest of the house. One click brought up the interior hallway security camera and showed Bond going into the last room on the left, where there were no security cameras inside, and where the exterior cameras were all carefully aimed away from the windows.

While a tiny corner of Q’s brain questioned how Bond could sleep so easily when there were people out there hunting for him, the larger, more logical part of him knew that not only was Bond injured, and they were supposedly in a safe place, but that Bond couldn’t be functional without adequate rest. Q, on the other hand, was a chronic insomniac. He required less than three hours of sleep a day to be fully functional — not that he was going to be able to sleep even that much tonight. Bond might be used to people assaulting him with guns and knives, but Q certainly wasn’t. He suspected the adrenaline would keep him going most of the night.


	8. Chapter 8

**Monday, 11 February 2013**

Q awoke in an unfamiliar bed, blinking his eyes open to see his glasses and the stark, threatening black shape of a gun — his gun — on the bedside table. Diffuse sunlight seeped through the white honeycomb shade over a huge, long window with the spiked shape of a cactus outside, thorns occasionally scraping the glass. He could hear a muffled voice somewhere in the house. The sound of shouting in a foreign language. Russian, he thought.

Adrenaline slammed through him. He sat up quickly and grabbed his gun off the table, suddenly appreciating the comforting weight in his palm. He didn’t immediately run out, though, wondering where in the hell a Russian enemy would have come from — so far, all the targets had been British or American.

Well, there was nothing for it. He wasn’t going to dive out the window and run away. Quietly as he could, he got out of the bed. Keeping a two-handed grip on the Glock, careful to keep it pointed at the floor and away from his own toes, Q softly padded out of the bedroom and towards the source of the shouting.

As he eased around the corner, he heard, more loudly, Bond’s voice answer, also in Russian, punctuated by a muffled _thud_ that sounded like the refrigerator door slamming shut. Carefully, Q peered out into the great room and saw only Bond, shouting at the countertop. The other voice cut him off — Bond’s mobile, on speaker.

Q blinked at the scene, then relaxed against the doorframe with an annoyed sigh. “Morning,” he grumbled quietly, walking forward to set the gun on the countertop before going over to the coffee pot. A quick glance at the clock showed that it was just past seven in the morning. Last he recalled, he’d been mapping known locations into Google maps to see if he could get a larger picture of Davis’ movements. That had been just after four.

Bond rolled his eyes at Q without pausing in what sounded like a very angry scolding. It took Q one sleepy moment to realise Bond had changed from his jeans to a suit — or half of one, with dark charcoal trousers, a pinstripe button-down shirt, and a tie. If not for the shoulder holster rig, he would have looked like an accountant on the way to the office.

Finally he snapped out something over the other voice’s answer, and then reached out to disconnect the call. “Bloody idiot. Sorry if I woke you,” he said, turning back to a frying pan where he had bacon sizzling. “Negotiations start loud and only get louder.”

“I wouldn’t have slept much longer anyway,” Q said with a sleepy growl. He _hated_ mornings. He stared at the coffee pot, knowing he was supposed to be doing something to get the coffee from the pot and into his bloodstream, but unable to focus long enough to make it from Point A to Point B yet. He listened as Bond transferred the bacon to a plate, covered it with a tea towel, and started cracking eggs into the pan. “And don’t tell me anything you want me to remember for at least a half hour. Because I won’t.”

Bond laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind. Breakfast or are you just going to try to absorb caffeine through visual osmosis? And do I need to pour for you so you don’t end up wearing the coffee? You’re not wearing much else.”

Q looked down at himself in surprise, and realised he was clad only in his boxers. “Shit. Sorry. I don’t even remember going to bed, let alone getting undressed.” He turned to shuffle back to the bedroom, then stopped, staring absently at the doorway. “Is there a shower?”

“There’s no water in the desert. Just stand outside and let the sun burn the dirt off you,” Bond answered blandly.

Q turned to stare Bond. The downside of his insomnia, of course, was that it took him at least twenty minutes after waking to get his brain up and running, so there was no point in trying to parse Bond’s words. Bond’s bland expression broke into half-suppressed snorts that probably meant something.

“Oh, Christ, Q,” he said, finally giving in to his laughter. When he laughed, Q noted, he looked younger. Less like a killer. “Yes, there’s a bloody shower. Do I need to lead you to it and hold you up so you don’t drown, or can you manage on your own while I burn breakfast?”

“Burn breakfast,” Q muttered, turning towards the doorway again. He dragged his knuckles along the wall as he started searching out the bathroom, the physical sensation helping to wake him up a bit. Then, deciding he really might drown in the shower if he didn’t get some caffeine in him, he shuffled back into the kitchen. He poured himself a half-cup of coffee, splashed in some cold water, drank it quickly despite the slight burn, and shuffled back out again.

Bond didn’t stop laughing, even when he cursed and turned back to rescue the burning eggs.

Fortunately, the house was small, and the bathroom was quick to reveal itself. Q didn’t know exactly how long he ended up standing under the hot shower, letting it ease some of the tension leftover from too many stressful days, but too soon he was forced out by the water running cold. He shivered as he wrapped himself in a towel, and spent probably far too much time using one of the disposable razors he found in a bag under the sink. Finally, he shuffled back out to the room he’d slept in, and redressed in yesterday’s jeans and button-down shirt.

It was probably an hour before Q finally made it back to the kitchen to pour himself a proper cup of coffee. There was no sign of Bond; instead, there was a note folded on the counter where his mobile had been:

_Out. Don’t answer the door. If anyone comes in, shoot them and leave. I’ll find you._

_— J_

That struck Q as slightly dramatic and perhaps over-ambitious given that Q was able to digitally erase his trail without any trouble whatsoever. Q turned back to the coffee pot, thinking that he’d have to talk with Bond about contingency plans in the event they were separated.

Two cups of strong coffee and a plate of re-heated breakfast later, Q was feeling much more human. Though it seemed a waste, he threw his pants, socks, and T-shirt into the washing machine, thinking he was going to need more in the way of clothing soon. After he started a quick wash cycle, he went to search the house. He spent several minutes hoping to find a paper map to mark Davis’ comings and goings on, but came up empty. Frustrated, he sent a text to Bond.

_I need to go shopping. — Q_

It was a couple of minutes before his mobile rang with an incoming call from a blocked number. When he answered, Bond asked, “What do you need? I’m already in town. There’s nothing for miles around the house except a gas station and a place that sells bulk fertiliser.”

Q yawned. “Lovely. I need a Phoenix area map, a box of thumbtacks, a ruler, and a set of Sharpie markers. Actually, a printer would come in handy, too.” He couldn’t bring himself to ask Bond to bring him back pants or socks.

“That’s blandly low-tech,” Bond said, sounding disappointed. “You wouldn’t rather have an RPG? Perhaps a tank? A toothbrush, or did you find one?”

“You had a massive box of individually-wrapped personal care supplies under the sink, or didn’t you notice?” Q yawned again. “Who set up this place for you? You should give them a raise.”

Bond laughed again, the sound bright and maybe-honest. “Property management division of my concierge service. I pay a ridiculous amount of money to be able to lift a phone and set up virtually anything legal in any city I choose. Would you like a yacht waiting for us off the coast of Spain? A trip to watch penguins in Antarctica? A box of chocolates sent by express air from Belgium?”

“A shuffling herd of penguins would be a fantastic way to test out new targeting systems,” Q answered thoughtlessly. Then he cursed. “Shit. Sorry. Too early for brain-to-mouth filter. So, I’m a bad person.” He yawned again. “Is a group of penguins a herd? A flock?”

This time, Bond laughed even harder. “I’ll text you their number and my account information. They can get whatever you need within twelve hours or you can bloody well practice on them. I’ll bring you your map and printer and all when I get home.”

“Lovely,” Q said again, going back for another cup of coffee. “That solves the problem of new pants and clothes. Ooh, I wonder if they can deliver decent tea. That would be heaven.”

“I’m certain they can. And sorry, didn’t think about your pants — but I suppose you’d prefer I didn’t,” Bond said, his laugh turning snarky. “I should be back in a couple of hours. If they get confused, tell them it’s property 4191.”

Q grumbled his thanks before he hung up, fairly certain he’d just been insulted. He turned to cleaning up the kitchen, hand-washing the dishes in order to give himself more time to think about his request. Clothes, pants, socks, and tea were a given. He decided to throw in a few SSD externals and a couple hundred dollars’ worth of components that could be the basis for tracking and observation equipment, if Bond needed it. Finally, determined to test the theory that they could supply anything, Q decided he would ask for one of those bags of penguin toys. If nothing else, Bond’s reaction would be amusing.

When he was finished cleaning up, he turned back to his mobile to discover that Bond had texted him both the phone number and a sixteen digit account number, as promised. If the very personable woman on the other side of the line was surprised by anything he asked for, she didn’t let it show. When she promised delivery within twelve hours, he chuckled and hung up with a “Don’t forget the penguins!”

Then he resumed last night’s position on the couch, and went back to his search.

It wasn’t even ten minutes later that he got lucky and was sent a notification from the alert he’d set up for Davis’ Mac address. The stupid arse was back on an unsecured network — this time, a restaurant on the north side of town. Q debated texting Bond, but decided there was no time. He set to work cracking the laptop’s encryption, and within minutes was copying as many of Davis’ files as possible to his server.

Q was so intent on prioritising copy progress — starting with the documents and email folders — that he didn’t hear Bond come in. When a folded map landed on the sofa beside him, he nearly jumped out of his skin. He glared back up at Bond, who was grinning down at him from behind the sofa.

“Busy?” he asked casually.

“Yes, you arse. You’re lucky I’ve only had three cups of coffee so far. One or two more and I would have shot you. Or tried to.” He sent a brief glance at the map, but focused back on his task, determined not to miss any of the best files if Davis left suddenly.

Bond laughed and dropped a couple of plastic shopping bags on the couch. “I’m putting the printer in the office. If you want it in your room or in here, you can move it yourself. And though you didn’t ask, I got paper as well.”

Q hummed his approval, and then swore viciously when his connection to Davis was suddenly cut off. “Man drinks his coffee too damn fast,” he muttered under his breath. He set his computer aside, stood, and stretched. He debated telling Bond about what had just happened, but held back. He didn’t know if he’d got anything good from the transfer or not. Best to wait until he’d had a chance to evaluate the data before he brought it up.

“Will you get in trouble for putting thumbtack-sized holes in the wall?” Q called over to Bond, picking up the map and the bag full of the supplies he’d requested.

“For what I’m paying? I bloody well hope not,” Bond said over the sound of cardboard being sliced open. Q went into the office to see Bond fold his knife and put it into the pocket of his suit jacket where someone else might keep a wallet or mobile phone. He lifted the top of the box, leaving a neat square of styrofoam-wrapped-printer in the middle of a flat tray of cardboard. “Can you find me this intel in two days or less?”

“I have the generic data,” Q answered, leaning against the doorway. “Now it’s a matter of analysis. That’s what the map is for. I can tell you where Davis has been, but if we have a visual representation, complete with marked out landmarks, we’ll probably have better luck identifying his habits and point of origin within the city. I placed an order for components for surveillance equipment, so that should help. I just want ten minutes alone with his laptop.”

“If necessary, I can get someone to steal it for you,” Bond offered. “I’d prefer not to directly attack him until I know more about his motives.” He stepped back from the desk, gesturing Q over. “All yours. We seem safe, so I may go out tonight.”

“If I can just ping him on an unsecured wireless location, with his laptop, I’ll be golden. If I can’t locate an opportunity, we’ll have to force it. I’ll know more once I see the map.” He looked appreciatively at the printer. “Am I allowed to go out tonight, too? Not that I want to rain on your parade, but going to a coffee shop with a live band or something will help me relax. I don’t like being surrounded by nothing but coyotes who want to eat me.”

“Could be risky,” Bond said, looking at Q as though assessing him. “I was going to go downtown or out to Scottsdale, but there’s probably a coffee shop closer.”

Q scoffed, “I don’t want to tag along and watch you seduce someone. I can take care of myself. You said it yourself. We should be safe.”

Bond’s brows shot up. Then he laughed and said, “All right. I moved your car to Westgate. It’s a rental. That means it has some sort of GPS tracking.”

“Logical,” Q said, flinching at the thought that he really was trapped here now.

Bond nodded. “That leaves only my car, and you can’t have it tonight. The concierge service should be able to arrange a taxi. Just try not to lead the enemy back to our gates.”

 

~~~

 

Q looked around the seemingly endless street, wondering what in the hell he had been thinking. A night out, he’d thought. Decompress, have some coffee, maybe a few drinks, maybe find a cute girl to take him home. Get the concierge service — terribly useful, that — to provide transport back to the safehouse. Crash before Bond could tell him he was an idiot.

Unfortunately, the live band had been amateurish at best, he hadn’t found a single girl of interest, and now he was standing at the dark entrance to the house, trying to find his keys. Somewhere in the distance he heard a coyote’s high-pitched bark, and he wondered if Bond had been serious about coyotes eating people. He broke out into a very loud, very off-pitch rendition of a Lady Gaga song in the hopes that the racket would scare them away.

Finally, he got the door unlocked and made it to the relative safety of the house. Assuming that Bond was still out getting laid, Q didn’t bother to quit what he thought was a perfectly lovely version of _Alejandro_ as he stumbled into the house.

Only when he reached the great room did he realise there was already music playing — a heavy, seductive beat, mostly bass and light drums, with a female vocalist who sounded like she was dying of a broken heart. Q stopped and looked in the direction of the kitchen, where a woman sat up on the counter. A _gorgeous_ woman. Black hair barely brushed her shoulders. Curves highlighted by a little black dress that rode up far, far too high. Long legs, high heels, far too much medium brown skin for Q to do anything but stare.

Bond, now without his jacket, tie hanging loose, was standing right up against the counter, one hand holding the woman’s leg. He lifted his head from her throat and gave Q a questioning look.

“Ooh, who’s that, darling?” she asked, her voice slithering right through Q’s inhibitions with absolutely filthy promises. “He’s cute.”

“A friend from back home,” Bond answered. “Q, meet Giacinta. He goes by ‘Q’, love,” he added to the woman, leaning back in to resume his attentions to her throat.

Giacinta tipped her head back but held her hand out to Q. Her nails were long and painted such a dark red that they looked almost black in the dim lighting.

Q couldn’t help the stupid grin that he felt take over his face. He took a few less than well-coordinated steps towards her to shake her hand lightly. “Lovely to meet you. Sorry for intruding. I’ll, uh...” He turned to look towards the living room, where the laptops were closed but still on the coffee table.

She didn’t let go of his hand, which was momentarily awkward, especially when she smiled at him. “Absolutely adorable,” she said, faintly rolling the _r_ sound. “Will he be joining us?”

Q stared at her, mouth open. “I, uh, don’t think...” He cast a glance back to his laptop. “I have work,” he said, waving his free hand.

“If it’s work, you’re doing it wrong,” Bond teased, shooting Q a fierce grin before he ran a finger up Giacinta’s throat and along her jaw. She turned to face him, and he leaned in close for a kiss that barely started tame before it turned rough and hungry.

Q frowned, suddenly deeply, overwhelmingly jealous of the gorgeous woman. “Now that’s just cruel,” he said tugging free of her grip. “Perhaps I need more alcohol.”

As Bond laughed into the kiss, Giacinta waved at the open, half-finished bottle of wine on the counter nearby. There was a clean, empty plate there as well, and Q could just picture Bond offering some snack or delicacy, only to get distracted into this almost-sex on the kitchen island.

Bond ran his hands down Giacinta’s back to her arse and pulled her forward an inch, to the very edge of the counter. She laughed and wrapped her legs around his waist, twisting her fingers in his short hair to take control of the kiss.

 _Right._ Q turned away, towards the wine bottle, and said, “I’ve never actually been in a threesome. I can’t decide if it would be fun, or just too many limbs to manage well.” He poured himself a glass of wine, took a drink, and shook his head. Images of Bond in bed, rather than Giacinta, flashed through his very active imagination, and he shuddered delightfully. “And, one girl to two guys? Seems like a logistical problem. Not enough...” Then he blushed furiously and stopped. “Nevermind.”

Bond ducked out of the kiss, struggling to contain his laughter. “It might be safer for all of us to move this to the bedroom,” he told Giacinta. Then he grinned at Q, adding, “If you change your mind...”

Whatever Q might have answered was cut off by Giacinta’s sudden yelp of surprise when Bond pulled her off the counter and into his arms. She was tall and curvy — so much for Bond having a ‘type’ — and Bond apparently had no trouble at all in carrying her. “James!” She scolded, the _s_ cutting off in a little gasp as he nipped her throat. She gave up, wrapped an arm around his shoulders, and snatched up a clutch purse that looked suspiciously heavy.

“I’d say good night, but that seems like a foregone conclusion,” Q muttered, perhaps more darkly than strictly necessary. “Don’t worry about me! I’ll just be out back. With headphones!” he shouted back at them. Then he headed over to the couch to get his laptop, headphones, and a blanket.

Bond paused in his assault long enough to give Q a sympathetic look, though he said nothing. He carried Giacinta out of the kitchen before he set her down — in her heels, she was barely an inch shorter — and led her down the hallway. She turned once to look back at Q and blow him a kiss.

Q groaned in annoyance, rolling his eyes as he gathered his things. At the last minute, he added a throw pillow. He carried everything out into the chilly night and then went back into the kitchen for the bottle of wine.

“Shitty ideas all around,” Q grumbled under his breath as he let the door slam behind him. It was cold but not yet freezing. He settled onto a lounge chair, only fumbling for a minute before he managed to get himself settled. He set the laptop on the bench beside him; he’d intended to browse Davis’ files, but now he didn’t feel like it.

Q tried not to picture Bond rolling around with Giacinta, but he failed. Furious at himself, he wrapped up in the blanket and wondered why the hell he didn’t have the guts to go join them.

Sleep overtook him before he found an answer.


	9. Chapter 9

**Tuesday, 12 February 2013**

Q opened his eyes to a penguin two inches from his face — to several, in fact. A small army of little plastic penguins stared at him, surrounding his pillow on all sides. More were scattered over his blankets like bizarre black and white rose petals in a bridal suite. Q’s immediate reaction was to wonder how much he’d managed to drink last night and what sort of strange psychopath he’d ended up in bed with. Then he realised where the tiny penguins had probably come from.

“Where’s a miniaturised turret gun when you need one?” he muttered, shutting his eyes again. It was far, far too early to deal with this shit. But now that he knew that he was literally surrounded, plastic penguins standing mockingly at attention mere inches from his face, he couldn’t fall back into unconsciousness. Groaning, he sat up and scattered the penguins with a shake of his blankets.

When he finally had the courage to crack one of his eyelids open again, he discovered that he was magically not on the patio anymore, but rather back in the bed he’d claimed the night before.

“Fuck,” he grumbled, shaking his head. “What the hell is wrong with me?”

Deciding it was far too early to even bother listing the answers to that question, he stumbled into the bathroom, then to the kitchen to see if penguin delivery also meant tea delivery.

Apparently it did, along with a full stock of perishables in the fridge. It wasn’t even tea bags but a tin of loose tea, with a ceramic pot, an electric kettle, and a strainer. As if it were an afterthought, there was a box of PG Tips in the cupboard. There was no sign of Bond or... whatever her name had been.

“Thank god,” Q exhaled as he opened the tin of tea. It was a perfect blend with deliciously fragrant bergamot — and perhaps even a hint of lavender — and he rinsed and filled the kettle impatiently. While he waited, he dug around the box of clothes to see if the company’s taste was as flawless as the lady on the phone had suggested. Q didn’t know much about clothes, but was delighted to find soft fabrics and muted colours and, blessedly, and entire pack of boxers and another of black socks.

Q dumped it all in the washing machine in the laundry room, belatedly thinking perhaps it wasn’t wise to wash it all together, and had just enough presence of mind to turn the dial to cold before stumbling back to the kitchen.

After a long look at the electronics components, Q decided it was best not to risk it until he was a bit more awake. Instead, he prepared his tea and fetched Bond’s laptop — which was resting on the coffee table again — while he waited. It was time to review Davis’ files.

It took only a few minutes to download the files from his server to Bond's laptop. Most of Davis’ emails were the normal sort: mailing list updates, social media notifications, and poorly spelled emails from friends who obviously couldn’t find the shift key. But buried in the bland normality was a single email from a Gmail address that was a number rather than a name, dated three months ago. The email was blank, save for a file attachment: a Ministry of Defence file on Cmdr. Bond, James, Royal Navy.

Q scanned it nervously. It was identical to the file he’d seen — the _authorised_ file that Alec had given him, with M’s permission. Though he was relieved to find no official orders against Bond attached to the file, he was concerned about the fact that it must have come from someone within the Ministry of Defence. Q chewed on his lip. What the hell did that mean?

He quickly filtered out all emails from that numbered account. There were only a half dozen, all of them blank, all with file attachments: bank account statements with multiple zeroes tacked onto the ends of dollars and euros, news articles on suspicious deaths and militia actions in countries Q had never heard of, and a video.

The video was a six-minute clip that looked like it had been taken with a mobile phone of questionable quality. It had obviously been compressed; Q couldn’t get the resolution of the initial frame to anything decent. Frustrated, he played it.

The initial frame’s poor quality was immediately explained when the phone moved, and Q realised the owner had been holding it close to a wall. The camera cleared what he suspected was a windowsill and panned awkwardly around a room — small, a barred window on the far side, what looked like cinderblock interior walls. It reeked of prison, though it was positively dingy rather than industrially sterile.

The camera settled on a slightly angled view of a man’s back, hands cuffed through the bars of a metal chair. He had black hair, medium-dark skin, and looked extremely well-muscled. For the next twenty-two seconds, nothing happened, to the point where Q wondered if the man was dead; he didn’t move, and the resolution was too poor for Q to see if he was breathing.

Then the man’s head lifted. The camera twitched violently before stopping again, this time at an even worse angle. Q immediately recognised Bond when he walked into the frame, though he was in desert camo body armour and a tan T-shirt that left his arms bare. He had a machine gun on a sling, but the ominous part was the knife in his hand.

Whatever language he spoke, Q couldn’t identify. Bond asked a question, and the man cuffed to the chair shook his head as he answered. Two other men came into the frame, both wearing gear similar to Bond’s, though different enough to imply this wasn’t regular military. Bond leaned down and repeated his question.

When the bound man screamed, Q couldn’t help but flinch and stab the mute button on the laptop. He looked up in the direction of the bedroom hallway, not wanting to think of what would happen if Bond caught him watching this.

The rest of the video was shaky footage of barely-obscured torture. Q didn’t need to hear the screams to understand what was going on; it was written in the way the bound man tensed and struggled with such force that he must have broken bones in his wrists trying to get free.

Then, as the unseen cameraman shifted the mobile, Bond’s head came up. He looked directly at the camera and barked out an order, and the other two men in the cell broke into a run for the door. The camera tilted wildly, showing an exterior wall, a dirt path, muddy bare feet running. Then, as the feet splashed into water, there was another lurch. The mobile dropped and the screen went black. Then the view shifted once more, showing a body with a hole in the back of a blue T-shirt, oozing blood, before the footage ended.

Q stared at the laptop in shock for a long time, heart racing. It was one thing to be fully aware that Bond was a soldier and a mercenary, and therefore probably responsible for horrible acts committed in the name of a mission. It was another thing entirely to watch him carve someone up without so much as a flinch of hesitation.

Then Q snapped into action. He deleted the file, deleted the email, emptied the trash folder, and launched a command prompt to make sure the files were actually erased, not simply tagged as ready for overwriting. He closed the windows in quick succession and then snapped the laptop shut and shoved it away.

It wasn’t relevant to the mission, he told himself. Her Majesty’s military intelligence _wanted_ Bond, prized him enough to offer him a place in the Double O programme, enough to send Q, a valuable asset in his own right, after him. There was no room for doubt.

But as Q got up to move his clothes from the washer to the dryer, he couldn’t help thinking obsessively about what he’d seen. The casual brutality was nauseating. How could a man be capable of doing such things to another human being? And how could Q reconcile that same man as the one who’d brought him in from the cold when he passed out on the patio from too much alcohol? How could that same man who’d tortured someone be so whimsical to arrange that little display of penguins?

Q had no idea. Giving up the struggle to understand, he walked back out to the kitchen and distracted himself by diving into the box of electronics.

 

~~~

 

It was well after nine before Bond emerged from the bedroom hallway wearing boxers and his scars. “You escaped the penguins,” he observed dryly, glancing over at the nest Q had built for himself in front of the telly. He’d spread the electronics components out over the coffee table, both end tables, and the sofa, leaving himself enough room to sit on the floor and use the coffee table as a worktop.

Q swallowed back his instinctive desire to stare at Bond, trying to reconcile _this_ with the video and the penguins and the kind, wry humour. “Scared the hell out of me, James. You should know better than to do that to me in the morning.”

Bond laughed, the sound rough and strangely intimate. Q turned to watch as Bond pulled the carafe out of the coffee pot and turned to fill it, and then stopped when he noticed the tins of tea. “Satisfied?” he asked. After a moment’s pause, he set aside the carafe, topped up the electric kettle, and turned it back on.

“Should I or should I not take advantage of the obvious opening?” Q chuckled, looking back down at the tracker he was building.

“You didn’t last night,” Bond said, absolutely innocent, as he started preparing tea.

“I was drunk, and your companion was terrifying. Did you see the nails on her? She would have shredded me,” Q answered, blushing.

“That’s half the fun.” Pointedly, Bond turned his back on Q and looked over his own shoulder, showing reddened scratches parallel to his spine. “You at least like women, right? Christ, you’re not celibate, are you?”

“Hardly,” Q muttered, frowning. “I’m a skinny, pale, and not socially adept nerd who can’t even pick up an American, apparently.” Let Bond think his discomfort and dark tone were caused by sexual frustration rather than a reaction to the horrible video. He couldn’t even look at the marks on Bond’s back without flashing back to the torture.

“And yet, you turned down an assassin last night,” Bond said, richly amused.

“I wasn’t going throw myself into a threesome just to entertain your one night stand,” Q huffed.

“I meant Giacinta.”

Q looked up, surprised. “I knew it! Well, not in the sense that I actually _knew_ , but her handbag did look unusually heavy.” He narrowed his eyes. “Where is she now?”

“She went home around four.” Bond turned to lean on the counter, watching Q with a smirk. “She informed me that if I let you die of exposure on the patio, she’d be very upset with me.”

Q sighed and shook his head, pulling his knees up to his chin. Two assassins in this tiny house, and him passed out on the back patio. “Right. Of course.” Suddenly he wanted that bottle of wine he’d left on the back patio, nine a.m. or not.

Sympathetically, Bond said, “I’m just teasing. She wasn’t offended. I think she thought your shyness was charming.” He turned to the electric kettle and started making his tea.

Q couldn’t do much more than nod. Then he went back to working on the tracker. “I’ve mapped out Davis’ movements,” he called toward the kitchen. “Have a look.”

“Tea first,” Bond insisted.

He walked over a minute later, carrying a steaming mug. He looked at the map tacked to the wall beside the telly. It was stuck with colour-coded pins; Q had used black pins for confirmed locations, meaning places where he’d logged into a Wi-Fi network with his laptop, and red pins with light circles drawn around them in pencil for mobile signal towers. There were the occasional blue pins for sites where he’d shown up in various photos, whether social media, ATM, or CCTV feeds. Either Davis was travelling with credit cards in different, possibly multiple identities or he was paying for everything in cash. Q couldn’t get a single financial trace.

Bond seemed to understand immediately. “You got this from his mobile’s signal?” as he traced one of the circles.

“Mobile, laptop, and anywhere he got caught on camera.” Q looked up and smirked, subdued though he may be, he was still quite proud of his work. “See why I wanted old-fashioned tacks and paper?”

“Mmm,” Bond hummed thoughtfully, and leaned down to pick up one of the sharpies. After considering the map for a moment, he put a ‘1’ next to several locations, saying, “Weapons shops, places that used to sell ammo — I’m guessing these were his earliest locations?”

“Hold on,” Q said, and the printer in the office starting clacking. “I’m printing my spreadsheet of known locations. When that’s done, you can reference timestamps.”

Bond nodded and looked back thoughtfully at Q. “You’re good. Very good.”

“Told you,” Q shrugged. “I’m going to hang out at Coyote Bar & Grille for lunch today and every day until I catch him there. He seems to like the place. He goes there for lunch at least once a week, and stays for at least thirty minutes. The idiot never fails to connect to their unsecured wireless there. It will be my chance to get” — he stopped himself just in time to not say ‘the rest of’ — “his data.”

“Don’t get caught. Don’t take risks,” Bond said immediately. Not ‘don’t leave my supervision’ or any suspicion that Q might sell him out to this larger, possibly-MOD-authorised, better-armed force.

“I won’t,” Q said, not bothering to hide his surprise at the sanction — the trust. “I’ve even been practicing my American accent, so he won’t get suspicious at the sudden appearance of a fellow Brit. I sound very deeply Southern, but it’s the best I can do.”

Bond laughed, looking Q’s way with a bright-eyed grin. “I need to hear that, one day. Your new wardrobe will help. Just tell me you’re not going to cut that distinctive hair of yours. I rather like it.”

Q smiled as he looked up Bond, watching the way his skin rippled over tight muscles as he moved. For the first time, it occurred to Q that Bond might not have just been on the giving end of that kind of treatment that he saw on the video. The thought made him deeply uncomfortable. “I look absolutely absurd with short hair.”

“I like it — especially now that you’ve found the shower.” Bond walked away from the map and reached down, brushing his free hand over Q’s hair.

 _That_ earned a blush that Q tried to hide by focusing back on his tracker. He couldn’t even remember the last time someone played with his hair. “Thanks.”

Bond took a drink of his tea and muttered, “Brilliant plan, adding tea to the list. I just tell them to stock the houses, so they go by local standards. Tea goes on all the lists now.”

“That explains the beans, salsa, and tortillas...” Q chuckled as he carefully placed the tiny processor on the board, and picked up his solder gun. “I just assumed you liked to blend in with the locals.”

“It does cut down on questions,” he agreed. “What’s that you’re working on?”

“A tracker chip that should be relatively undetectable to standard signal scanning, and will ping to our mobiles.” Q pushed his glasses up, hoping like hell that he didn’t drop one of the output pins. His hands shook slightly from the leftover adrenaline reaction to the video, his hangover, and too much caffeine from tea over-indulgence. “You’ll have to give me your mobile to modify it for the signal, if you don’t mind.”

“Let me go get it. I’m skipping going running this morning,” Bond added dryly, stepping around Q to head for the bedroom hallway.

It was Q’s ridiculous fascination with Bond’s arse that triumphed over his skill, rather than the hangover or the caffeine or the adrenaline. As Q almost unconsciously turned to watch Bond walk away, the soldering iron slipped. Q wasn’t fast enough to catch the pin as it dropped, and only succeeded in allowing the iron’s tip to fall on the tender flesh between his thumb and forefinger. As if the burn wasn’t bad enough, a drop of solder was still molten on the tip, and it dripped into the burn.

“Bloody fucking hell!” Q shouted, dropping the iron into its cradle. Tears sprang to his eyes, but he didn’t dare jump up and run to the sink to cool the burn for fear that he’d knock the chip onto the floor. Just the slightest static charge would ruin hours of work.

Bond was there in an instant. Tea splashed out of his mug as he set it on the nearest end table, away from Q’s electronics. “What happened? Did you burn yourself?”

“Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” Q grated out as he carefully set down the chip and ripped off the anti-static wristband. He rose in the middle of his little nest, and Bond caught his arm to steady him. He distantly reflected that it was probably a compliment that Bond didn’t immediately go for a weapon when Q had shouted. “It’s just a small burn, but it stings like a bitch.”

Bond helped Q over the components. He didn’t let go when Q was clear; he took Q by the wrist and pulled him into the kitchen, looking at the burn. “Get your hand under cold water. I’ll get something for the pain.”

Feeling like a complete idiot, Q looked away from the burn as he turned on the cold water. He was grateful that the house had blissfully cool well water rather than the city water he’d heard never really cooled down. He glanced at the burn only long enough to see that the mark was at least an inch long, with a deep divot near the end where the solder had fallen. Before the skin had a chance to puff up into a blister, he thought it almost resembled the letter ‘i’. Madly, he wondered if there was anything significant that started with an ‘i’ that he could make jokes about when the burn faded into a scar.

Bond came back with a new-looking cloth pouch in digital tan and green camouflage. He unclipped it and rolled it open, leaning over to look at the burn. “Do you want morphine or will something less powerful do?”

“I don’t think it’s wise that I show up for a clandestine lunch mission high on opiates, do you?” Q asked, trying for humour even as his hand shook.

Bond laughed, reaching for Q’s wrist again. He tipped Q’s hand to keep it under the running water while he studied the burn. “I meant a local anaesthetic. I’m not feeding you painkillers and letting you drive to get petrol, much less to go after Davis,” he scolded. “And you don’t have to go today. I can send someone else.”

Q looked at Bond with horror, though the effect was probably ruined by his damp face. “Absolutely not. His laptop is encrypted. Well-encrypted. I need to go.”

“I’ll get someone to drive you,” Bond said, releasing Q’s wrist. “Stay here, keep your hand under the water,” he added, turning to go back to the bedroom hallway.

 _I for inept_ , Q thought as he glared at his hand. _I for insane._ If this stupid burn compromised his ability to get to Davis, whether due to slower typing or being more noticeable with a big bandage on his hand, he was going to be exceptionally angry with himself. And all for a look at Bond’s arse. _I for idiot._

He was still cursing himself when Bond returned. He ripped open a paper packet of gloves from the first aid kit and pulled them on. “Any allergies to anaesthetics? Lidocaine?”

Q shrugged. _I for imbecile._ “Not that I’m aware of. I don’t get hurt that often, though, so I guess I haven’t been thoroughly tested.”

“You should be fine,” Bond said reassuringly, easing Q’s hand out of the water. “Is it better if you watch or don’t?”

Q didn’t bother with an answer, but did turn his head away, trying to think of an ‘i’ word for wimp.

He stopped thinking when Bond stepped against him, insinuating his body between Q and the sink. He had a firm hold of Q’s wrist, and he set Q’s hand on the counter, blocking everything he was doing. Distractingly.

“Stay still,” Bond said as he let go of Q’s wrist. He swabbed cold alcohol around the wound, careful not to get close to it.

Q tried to hold himself steady, but at the first painful pinch of the injection into his skin, he gasped and found himself leaning against Bond’s well-muscled body, which managed, miraculously, not to budge under the pressure of his weight. “Fuck,” he mumbled, forehead pressed somewhere over Bond’s spine. “Sorry. Just... fuck, that hurts,” he said, trying not to whine, as the Lidocaine started to burn.

“You’ll be fine,” Bond reiterated calmly. He still kept a firm grip on Q’s wrist, but as the fire spread, it was followed by a thick numbness that eased the spike of pain from the burn. “What happened?”

“Tiny fucking output pins, too much alcohol last night and tea this morning, and my own stupid, distractible nature,” Q huffed out with self-directed annoyance.

“Don’t call yourself stupid. I’ll accept clumsy, but not stupid — not with the data analysis you’ve already done,” Bond scolded over the sound of ripping foil.

Q didn’t bother replying, closing his eyes and focusing on welcome numbness that was taking over his hand. He tried experimentally tried to wiggle his fingers, but couldn’t feel anything. “How long is this supposed to last?” he asked nervously.

“Everyone’s different. Stop twitching or I’ll tie you down,” Bond threatened as he continued to work.

“If it doesn’t wear off by the time I get... Fuck. If I jeopardise this because of my...” Q shook his head, glaring down at his feet. “It’s the stuff they use at the dentist’s right? So two hours should be fine. I’ll be able to type just fine.”

“You’re too stressed.” Bond laughed softly. “Relax. Tell me about the tracker. What are you planning on using it for?”

“I don’t know that I actually have a plan, beyond ‘get more data.’” Q admitted quietly. “Not only do I think you’d feel better knowing where he is all the time; I suspect that at some point you’re going to want to confront him. Having a solid record of his movements will help generate models of predictable behaviour much better than my ridiculous pushpin map. And, of course, when I hack his laptop, I’ll be able do tricky things with that, too, like randomly turn on the camera whenever I feel like, if he’s connected to the internet. That might give us some excellent data, too, from his compatriots’ faces to what kind of weapons he has.”

Bond’s hand tightened on Q’s wrist for a moment. “You really are a fucking genius, aren’t you?”

Q shrugged. “I did try to tell you. No one seems to believe me. Is it the hair?”

“Most geniuses —” Bond shook his head. “I’ll just have to make certain a rival doesn’t try to steal you away. I _was_ going to ask Giacinta to drive you today. Now, I wonder if that’s a safe idea.”

“Is she in the market for a pet genius?” Q asked with a chuckle, trying to wiggle his fingers again. “I’d ask if she has better perks, but frankly, I don’t want to hear about them.”

“You could’ve found out last night. She’s something of a perfectionist. Reminds me of you,” Bond teased.

“No thanks,” Q huffed out. “Man-eaters —”

Bond choked out a laugh. “That’s a bit too easy, Q. Do you _really_ want me to respond to that?”

“I was going to say they aren’t my style, but consider me rebuked. I’ve had my fair share of aggressive lovers, and find I don’t care for it much.” Q was glad Bond was in front of him, so he couldn’t see his embarrassed expression. What the hell was he doing telling Bond personal information like that?

Bond ripped something else open. Q could only feel gentle, distant pressure on his hand. “Giacinta’s extravagant; I think it’s cultural. She doesn’t want to dance — she wants to own the dance floor. She doesn’t want to fuck — she wants to make love half the bloody night, and then drive herself home.” He laughed.

“I wouldn’t have guessed that to be your type, but to each his own. I suppose knowing she’s useful in a fight is a nice thing, too.” Q frankly didn’t want to hear any more about Giacinta; he leaned back away from Bond and turned his head so he wouldn’t have to look at the scratches from her nails. “Sorry. Not my business.”

“You keep mentioning my ‘type’,” Bond said, lifting Q’s hand. “I’m going to wrap this now. It shouldn’t interfere with mobility, but tape will just bunch up.”

“It’s fine. I’m used to wrapping my hands. Occupational hazard, I’m afraid.” Q thought about the supportive wrist wrap he’d been carrying with him when he picked up Bond at the church what felt like ages ago. “Do you still have the wrist wrap I gave you in the car?”

“It’s probably still in the backseat of your car,” Bond said as he gently wrapped gauze around Q’s hand.

“Don’t worry about it. The gauze is fine,” Q said with a smile Bond couldn’t see. “Thanks for helping. I don’t think I could have injected myself with the anaesthetic. Probably seems stupid to someone like you, with your impressive collection of battle scars.”

“Just because I’ve had to do stupid things doesn’t mean I’ve _liked_ them,” Bond said as he let go and stepped away. He pressed a red and white paper packet into Q’s hand. “Tylenol. Do you need me to do the rest of your solder work?”

“Thanks for the...” Q started to say, before he realised that with his hand numb, he’d have absolutely no way to finish the chip. Which was completely and totally unacceptable. “How steady are your hands?”

“I’ve defused bombs,” he said as he got a bottle of water out of the fridge. He uncapped it for Q and offered it to him. “Wired them, too.”

Q raised an eyebrow but decided not to ask. “All right. Do you trust me enough after this little bout of stu... uh, clumsiness, to hold tiny components in place while I have a one thousand degree iron just centimetres from your fingers?”

Bond grinned. “One way to find out. Let me just go get dressed. I’m too far out of university to be walking around like this past ten in the morning.”

Q snorted. “Are you kidding?” Then he turned towards his desk and chuckled. “Giacinta would tell you otherwise, I bet,” he added quickly.

“Are you certain you don’t want me to call her to drive you? Of course, there’s nothing subtle about her, but at least she can blend in with the locals. You’d just have to pretend to understand Spanish.”

“I do understand Spanish,” Q corrected as he walked back over to his temporary makeshift workshop. “But no thank you,” he said as he started pushing things around to make room for two.


	10. Chapter 10

**Tuesday, 12 February 2013**

Somewhere along the line, Q was fairly certain he’d gone off-mission, but he didn’t care. He sat in the restaurant and stared at his laptop, playing the part of an overworked grad student as best he could while ignoring the growing ache in his burned hand, and watched as the file transfer finished. As tempted as he was to flick at the progress bar on his screen, he let his impatience reflect in the tapping of his pencil on the engineering textbook he had open next to him. It was a lucky find at the local bookshop he’d decided to duck into in a quick attempt to find props, beaten up and highlighted and full of material he already knew by heart.

Davis had come in twenty-seven minutes ago, which meant he’d be leaving anytime now. Q refused to give in to the twitches that threatened to betray his urgency to get one last folder of documents copying. Starting another copy could slow down the current one, and Q felt strongly that one complete download was better than two partials.

Q had managed to copy everything he considered high-priority, and now he was down to system files that might contain traces of communications, logins, and other data transferred using random programs like chats or web-based mail. He would _like_ to think an MOD official would know better than to have a conversation about classified information over AOL chat protocols, but here the idiot was, on open-access Wi-Fi, having his data stolen quietly right out from under his nose.

He still hadn’t solved the problem of how to plant the tracker he and Bond had finished building that morning. Planning the logistics of it was a poor diversion from trying not to focus on how physically close he and Bond had been during the build, but a diversion nonetheless. The ideas Q had for places to hide the tracker while preventing Davis from noticing him had distinct disadvantages, however. He could conceal the tracker under the back of Davis’ jacket collar or on one of his bags, but those things could easily be left behind. Q didn’t even trust Davis to keep the car. The tracker really needed to adhere to the mobile or the laptop: the only two things Davis was never seen without.

It came down to using his burn to his advantage. He would drop his coffee on Davis, grab for napkins, and stick the tracker to the laptop in the process. It was a cliché right out of the movies, and Q was certain Bond would hate the idea, but he couldn’t see any way around it.

At least the tracker was designed for it. He’d built it under a barely-domed, wide cap of polycarbonate that looked enough like a screw cap that a computer novice like Davis wouldn’t go prying at it. It was self-contained; the largest part was the tiny battery. Even the antenna was a hair-fine wire coiled under the cap. It would broadcast a location in pulses once every five minutes to conserve battery power, and Q would capture the signal using the mobile phone network in and around metro Phoenix.

He rubbed a finger against the sticky underside of the medical tape holding his bandage in place until his finger was tacky. He stuck the tracker’s housing to his finger, upside-down. Carefully, he opened the little tube of superglue. He applied a dot to the underside of the tracker and started a mental countdown.

Q closed his laptop — he’d set it up to keep running all programs even with the lid closed — and packed it away clumsily, emphasising the bandage on his hand when he turned into what he hoped was Davis’ line of sight. He closed the messenger bag, hoisted it over his shoulder, and picked up his half-empty coffee cup. He was too busy looking down at his messenger bag, holding it steady with his uninjured hand — hiding the tracker — while trying to pull the zipper closed with two fingers of his other hand, all while not spilling the coffee on himself.

Just as planned, he came a little too close to Davis, and the coffee splashed out of the cup as Q fumbled it.

“Oh, my good gracious!” Q said in his best imitation of the Georgian accent he’d been practising. Davis jumped up and yelled — rather an overreaction, Q thought, considering that the coffee had been cooling for some time. “I’m _so_ sorry. Here, please, let me,” he insisted, and took advantage of the distraction to slip his hand under the laptop as he reached for the serviettes. The tracker took only microseconds to adhere, and Q was patting at Davis before the man had even looked up at him.

The cold, flat killing-rage that he saw in Davis’ eyes drove him back a step in genuine alarm. Q’s heart lodged somewhere in his throat, and he thought about the Glock hidden in his messenger bag, knowing he’d never draw it in time.

 _Idiot,_ he thought in a panic. Someone had sent Davis to hunt Bond. Davis was no back-office paper-pusher. It would take a killer to hunt a killer.

Before Davis could say another word, Q bolted. Only when he was out in the hot sunshine did he remember how to breathe again.

He made it to his car quickly, barely repressing the urge to break into a run. He unlocked it quickly with every intention of jumping in and driving off before anyone could follow him, but the blast of heat that greeted him when he opened the door forced him to change his mind. _Fucking sunshine_ , he thought bitterly, reaching in to turn the key in the ignition. He waited for as long as he could stand it, letting the air conditioning cool the interior, casting occasional glances back toward the coffee shop.

When he couldn’t take it any longer, Q jumped in the car. The black plastic steering wheel was still too hot to touch, so he took advantage of the wrap on his hand to navigate, ignoring the way the heat seeped through to his burn.

When he was several kilometres away, Q finally let himself relax enough to tear his eyes away from his rearview mirror. At a traffic light, he fumbled in his pocket for his MP3 player and plugged it into the audio cable that ran from the auxiliary jack of the car’s stereo. He hit play, and the sounds of Nightwish — symphonic metal at its best, in his opinion — filled the car. He was going to be driving for a while in an effort to make sure no one would follow him back to the safehouse; it was a rare opportunity to lose himself in his music, one he desperately needed.

He drove west into Sun City, a haven for retirees where the speed limit wasn’t even fifty kilometres per hour on most streets. Even with his minimal MI6 orientation training, he would’ve been able to spot anyone tailing him at that rate.

Finally, two hours later (a full thirty minutes longer than he’d planned), he pulled into the driveway at the safehouse. At the very least, Q’s frustration with the suburban Seventh Circle of Hell had served the purpose of making him forget how damn scared he’d been of Davis. He walked into the house intent on nothing more than exquisitely cold water — to drink, to soak his hand in, to dump over his head, or all of the above, he wasn’t sure yet. Then he’d check the functionality of his tracker.

Bond intercepted him before he was even out of the laundry room. “Are you all right?” he demanded, taking hold of Q’s shoulder as he looked him over from head to toe.

Q was uncomfortably reminded of Davis’ body language, but when he looked at Bond’s face he saw nothing but concern. “I’m fine,” he said calmly. “Planting the tracker required more interaction than I’d originally planned, so I took my time coming back to make sure I wasn’t followed.”

Bond’s jaw went tight, but the hand on his shoulder remained gentle. “He saw you. Buggering _fuck_ , Q.” He let go and stalked away a few steps. Then he stopped and took a breath, looking up towards the ceiling. “I told you to be careful.”

“I _was_ careful,” Q said with a huff. He left his bag by the door and pushed past Bond to head towards the kitchen. “I sat there for thirty minutes, and he’s no idiot. _You_ would have noticed me — what makes you think he wouldn’t have? It wasn’t that much of an added risk.” He opened the cupboard with the bowls to find something big enough to rest his hand in, and pulled out an incredibly ugly burnt orange, avocado, and brown ceramic bowl. It was heavy, but had the added benefit of not causing condensation. He held it carefully with his injured hand and went to the ice box to start filling the bowl with ice.

Before he could get a second handful of ice from the bin, Bond took the bowl away. “Sit down. I’ll do that. Tell me what you got from his computer. Did you get anything?”

“Yes. I was down to system files.” Q retrieved his bag from the laundry room and made his way back to his nest by the couch. He kicked off his shoes before settling in the middle of his impromptu workshop, and leaned back against the couch gratefully. “Just give me a second. I had the air on its highest setting in the car, but it couldn’t keep up with the heat and the sunlight. I can’t believe people live here on purpose.”

Over the sound of rattling ice and running water, Bond said, “You were driving west during the hottest part of the day. Just imagine it in summer.”

“No thanks.” Q sat up again and dug his laptop out of his bag. “So, I managed to get the data and plant the tracker. I also set loose those programs I told you about. His camera will be turned on all the time now — as long as he’s hooked up to one of the wireless networks he’s used so far — and the recordings will be transmitted to one of my servers. You can access it in real time, of course, but I thought it was easier to have someplace other than my laptop to store it. I also have his mail being copied to an anonymous account I set up. We can access his laptop any time it’s online, now, but I don’t want to risk running too much at once. He might decide the thing has become too slow and request a replacement, if I’m using all his RAM. As it is, the camera is a draw on the battery.”

“Jesus, as if that’s not enough?” Bond asked, sounding impressed. With a rattle of ice, he crossed to the living room and set down the bowl and a glass of water. “Do you need more Tylenol?”

Q looked up at Bond, trying to hide his surprise. Bond was actually trying to take care of him. It was difficult to reconcile the man who’d so carefully attended to him the past several days with the man he’d seen in the video. Not wanting to go down that mental road again, however, Q simply nodded. “Yes, please,” he said before looking back down at his hand with a frown. He’d spilled coffee all over the gauze; he’d have to change it. Before he took it off, though, he wanted to get the tracker loading. “Let’s see what our target has been up to,” he murmured.

“Don’t use that hand,” Bond warned, already heading towards the bedrooms. Then he shouted, “You’re not to go near him again, by the way.”

“You don’t have to worry about that. I thought he was going to break my neck just for spilling coffee on him.” He shuddered. “I don’t think you could _pay_ me enough to do that again.”

Bond was back in seconds, stopping at the hallway corner to stare at Q, ice blue eyes intense. “Did he touch you?”

“No,” Q said, watching Bond. There it was again — the killer edge that made Bond more like Davis than like Q. But it wasn’t directed _at_ Q; Bond was angry on his behalf. It was strangely comforting rather than frightening. “I’m ashamed to say I bolted before he could do anything more than glare at me.”

Some of the tension in Bond’s shoulders eased, though the sense of danger — of barely controlled violence — remained. He nodded and disappeared down the hallway again.

He came back a minute later with a bottle of Tylenol. He brought it to the couch, sat down, and opened it for Q. “Two? You probably don’t have a tolerance built up,” he observed and shook two of the tablets out into his hand. He offered them to Q.

“Sadly, paracetamol and I are close friends,” Q admitted. “You can’t stare at a computer or work on circuitry for most of your waking hours and not be intimately acquainted with it, and ibuprofen, and naproxen...” Q tossed the pills back and chased them with water. Then he started unwrapping his hand.

Immediately, Bond took over, carefully holding Q’s hand by the fingers so he could get at the wrap without going near the burn site. “I’ll make dinner so you’re not taking them on an empty stomach.”

Q watched Bond’s incredibly gentle movements, falling back on the train of thought that said he’d gone way off mission. He’d gone so far to earn Bond’s trust that he could probably broach the topic of returning to England now. But he couldn’t find it in himself to bring it up. Right now, with Bond’s careful hands and... _protectiveness_ , Q realised, he decided that MI6 could wait. All Q wanted, at this very moment, was to help Bond catch the bastard that had tried to kill him.

“You don’t have to,” he said, turning his attention to the laptop, swallowing back the uncomfortable realisation that somehow, Bond had become more than a target to him. “I take buckets of the stuff without eating much. It doesn’t bother me.”

Bond huffed. “Do you want a liver transplant before you’re thirty? Besides, you ordered real food. I can cook something that doesn’t depend on salsa for flavour.” He put the wrap aside and ran a finger under the edge of the tape that Q had dislodged. “Something happen?”

“It took some clever applications of what I had on hand to adapt to the situation at the coffee shop,” Q said teasingly. “Once I realised that I’d have to get the tracker over to the laptop and glue it to the underside, while carrying a cup of coffee in my injured hand — all in front of Davis, no less — I had to get creative. The residue of the tape was quite effective at keeping me from dropping the tracker before I could get it adhered to the case.”

Bond’s head came up, and he looked at Q, impressed. “Clever,” he said, his gaze going distant for a moment. “How did you fix it to the laptop?” he asked, turning back to removing the tape. The question sounded more like a test than simple curiosity.

“I originally wanted to use a two-part epoxy to make sure that the tracker wouldn’t get dislodged accidentally, but I ended up ruling it out as impractical. Even if I used epoxy tape, it would have taken too long and I would have been caught. So I fell back on a classic — a dab of superglue and a mental countdown to get it in place before the glue dried.”

Bond laughed, fingers tightening on Q’s hand as he peeled away the last of the thin medical tape. “God. Maybe a little _too_ clever.”

“No such thing as _too_ clever,” Q said reflexively, even as the words struck a nervous chord. There were all sorts of implications from that sort of phrasing, if Q were being paranoid. Did Bond think Q was working for Davis? Did he suspect that Q’s appearance and skills were just a little too convenient? Was he suspicious of Q for some other reason? Q couldn’t think of anything he’d done that would signal a return of Bond’s reservations about him.

“Clever makes you cocky.” Bond pulled the bandage off and leaned over to take the bowl from the coffee table. He moved back enough to set the bowl between them. “That gets you hurt or worse. If Davis suspected anything —” He shook his head and slid his hand up Q’s bare forearm, fingertips on the sensitive underside, as he eased Q’s hand into the ice water.

The timing of the plunge into ice water couldn’t have been better — the sensation of Bond’s fingers on skin sparked something Q hadn’t felt for a man in a very long time. It was one thing to admire from a distance, but to catch a glimpse of what he could have if he’d wanted to take the risk? Fortunately, the ice water soothed not just his burn. “I try to go for self-deprecating for that very reason,” Q teased. “But you don’t seem to like that either. Make up your mind, will you?”

Frowning up at him, Bond looked up from examining the burn, though it was underwater. “What?”

“I chastise myself for stupid mistakes, you are displeased. I act cleverly, you are displeased,” Q pointed out with a small smirk. “It’s fairly exhausting, and I’m not one for middle grounds.”

Bond exhaled sharply and looked back down. “Just don’t get yourself killed. Not unless Davis or his men get you. They’ll make certain you don’t want to live.”

Q sighed. “Right. Sorry.” He turned his attention back to his laptop, watching Davis’ red dot hover at the edge of the screen. His program, which ran on one of his servers rather than his laptop, had started recording data from the minute Davis had left the coffee shop. So far, he’d done nothing but drive from the coffee shop to his present location. Q cast a glance at the pushpin map to confirm it wasn’t a place that was on their radar yet.

Bond’s fingers tightened a bit on Q’s arm. He still hadn’t let go, and Q couldn’t help but wonder if it was unconscious or intentional; Bond seemed distracted. “I’ll do my best to keep that from happening,” Bond told him.

 _To hell with it_ , Q thought. His hand hurt, and now he was thinking about being tortured at Davis’ hands. Bond himself seemed to be encouraging physical contact, and Q had done well — he’d earned some affection, he decided. He moved the bowl forward and shifted over on the sofa, and then it was a simple, almost natural act to tip his head just enough to the right so that his temple rested on Bond’s shoulder.

Bond tensed slightly but didn’t let go of Q’s arm. He turned just enough to brush against Q’s hair. “Are you tired? You can’t have slept well on the patio.”

“Is it always like this?” Q asked quietly, relaxing just a little against Bond now that he wasn’t as worried about being shrugged off. “I mean, who doesn’t want to play spy when they’re a kid? But it’s... very stressful, isn’t it?”

Bond’s laugh sounded tired. “I’d say you get used to it, but that’s bollocks. Start drinking, die young, I suppose,” he said, sounding resigned.

“James...” Q started. This was probably it — the perfect moment to ask Bond to come back. To tell him it probably wouldn’t have been any less stressful, but at least he’d have back up. To reassure him that he was _wanted_ by old friends and the most powerful intelligence agency in Britain. But all Q really wanted to do was to push a little harder, cross a line he hadn’t crossed since uni. He lifted his head and turned just enough to bury his face in Bond’s neck, nuzzling just a little.

“Q? What are you doing?” Bond asked, tensing — though again, he didn’t pull away. Q could feel the pulse in Bond’s neck beating hard and fast. “Christ, you’re not having some sort of reaction to the Tylenol, are you?”

Suddenly feeling like an absolute idiot, Q straightened and looked away. “I...” _What? Lost my mind?_ He pulled his hand from the bowl of water and got ready to flee for his room. It seemed to be the theme of the day. “Sorry.”

Bond tightened his hand around Q’s wrist, pushed his hand back into the ice water, and wrapped an arm around his shoulder. “It’s fine,” he said, tugging Q close. His voice was perfectly calm and steady, though his body’s tension betrayed him. “I’m sorry. You’re not —” He shook his head and held Q a little closer. “You’re a civilian. You didn’t ask for this shit.”

Guilt crashed over Q, because of course he did. He reached out with his left hand and pulled up the folder with the video feed on his server and gave it a moment to copy it to the desktop. Then he opened the folder with the files from Davis’ laptop. It took him a few seconds to sever all connections to the server, so Bond wouldn’t get too interested and start snooping around.

“Here’s everything. I, uh... I think I’m going to go lie down for a while,” Q said, desperately hoping he wasn’t blushing. “You’re right, the patio wasn’t very comfortable.” He took what would probably his last opportunity to get this physically close to Bond to lean into him briefly before trying to get to his feet. “Let me know if you need help with something.”

Bond held onto him for another moment, saying, “I should — Did you want me to bandage that for you?”

Q let out a quiet laugh. “If you do, I might try to kiss you again, and that’s apparently an unwise idea.” He tugged at his hand, wanting nothing more than to escape. _Idiot_ , he scolded himself.

“You’re not gay.” Bond let go of Q’s wrist and slid his arm off Q’s shoulders. “Perfectly normal stress reaction. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Q muttered, standing. “I’ll be up in a couple hours. Have fun with the data. Wake me if you need me.” Scanning the laptop one last second to check to make sure he’d covered all his bases, Q all but stumbled over his barricades and made a tactical retreat.

Q slipped into his room and quietly shut the door behind him. He stripped down to his jeans and crawled into bed, setting his glasses on the bedside table before he pulled the light blanket up to his chin. God, he hoped Bond was busying himself with Davis’ files and not thinking about what a fool Q was.

 _Stress reaction?_ he thought bitterly before he actually gave himself time to think about it. As much as he hated to admit it, Bond was half-right. That casually dangerous look in Davis’ eyes was the stuff of nightmares, and Q wanted comfort. Reassurance. _Safety_. And short of retreating back to the hotel to deal with Alec’s snarky bullshit or flying back to MI6, Bond was the only safety Q was going to find.

It didn’t help that Bond was so... frustrating, confusing, attractive, frightening... Q rolled onto his back and rested his stinging, burned hand on top of the covers as he stared up at the ceiling. He thought he’d known precisely what he was getting into with this mission, only nothing was as it seemed. The enemy was an ally, his target was equal parts captivating and terrifying, and Q, for all his genius, had no idea what to do next.

Two days ago, he’d casually told Bond, _‘I’m not gay, James.’_ At the time, he’d thought it a brilliant way to keep seduction off the table as a tactic to build trust and eventually coax Bond back to England. Now, all he’d done was shoot himself in the foot. Instead of sulking in bed by himself, he could be out there in the living room with Bond snogging him senseless, helping him forget about Davis and the burn and the stress of this fucked-up mission.

And _that_ was the other problem. How could he build trust and then _admit to a lie_ , and expect Bond _not_ to shoot him? The plan laid out by Alec and M had seemed fine: Gain trust, pass information, and come home to a glowing report and promotion out of his stuffy little office. But what made sense in M’s safe, civilised office was an impossible logic puzzle. Bond wouldn’t trust a stranger, so Q had to become a friend, only with the intent to betray Bond, which was what had driven Bond from England in the first place.

Thank fucking god he wasn’t a field agent. He was a genius and this was still too complicated for him. He pulled his MP3 player out of his pocket and unwound his earbuds from the attached clip. Maybe it was time for more metal. If Epica couldn’t help him sleep, at least it would drown out the noise in his head.

 

~~~

 

Q awoke to the distant smell of fragrant wood smoke and spicy barbecue sauce. He groaned and blinked away the grit in his eyes, rubbing them briefly before reaching for his glasses. A quick look at the window showed him it was still light out, so he hadn’t managed to sleep for more than an hour or two. Pleased, knowing that the nap meant he could either sleep for a couple hours again tonight or stay up if he needed to, he rolled out of bed and slowly started getting dressed. He didn’t realise that he still had earbuds in his ears until he pulled the shirt over the wires, but decided trying to tug them free was too much of a hassle at the moment.

Following instinct, prompted by his rumbling stomach, Q dragged himself to the kitchen, staring stupidly at it for long moments when he realised it was empty. Cooking food equalled kitchen in his experience, but the good smells had to be coming from somewhere.

Q decided that logic demanded that he follow his nose; with a clumsy turn, Q started walking towards where the smell became stronger. The slightly open back door to the patio led Q to a huge steel barbecue, smoking ribs, and Bond, gun on his hip and very sharp barbecue fork in his hand.

“Feel better?”

It was only because he read lips that Q knew what Bond was saying — he stared dumbly at Bond, wondering what had happened to sound. Even the grill wasn’t making noise, and judging by the smoke, he should have been able to hear _something_.

Bond switched the deadly fork to his other hand and reached for Q. A quick tug pulled the earbud out of his right ear, and sound returned to the world. “Feeling better?” Bond repeated, failing to hide his amused grin.

“Uhhh...” Q looked down at his bare feet, his legs, ran a hand over his chest just to check. Only when the burn slid uncomfortably over his shirt did he realise he actually did have an injury, slight as it was. He stared at his hand, assessing. “Ow,” he said with some surprise, and turned back to the door. Ice and paracetamol. That was what he needed.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Bond said, catching hold of his arm. “God knows what you’ll do to yourself in this state. Are you always like this when you first wake up?” He herded Q towards one of the lounge chairs instead and gave a gentle push. “Sit. What do you need? Or do you just want to get out of the heat?”

“You’re grilling. Fire. Outside. In the desert.” Squinting his eyes against the sun, Q stared up at Bond. Surely that wasn’t wise, having open flames in a part of the world where everything was bone dry and could probably catch fire just by staring hard enough.

“Better than cooking inside and trapping the heat. The ribs are almost done anyway. Stay here so you don’t hurt yourself.” Bond let go and went back to the barbecue.

“‘S okay, Soldering iron’s unplugged inside,” Q reassured him as he flopped into a chair. Bond stared at him, bemused, but turned his attention back to the grill, chuckling quietly. Q pulled his legs up to rest his chin on his knees and stared out at the dismal landscape, trying to remember if he’d ever eaten ribs in his life. Pub food wasn’t exactly his forte, even if he had the sort of friends he’d go to a pub with. Point of fact, he didn’t even know what animal sacrificed itself for the grill. He turned his head to look at Bond again and tried to get a glimpse of what was cooking. “Pig?”

Bond’s chuckle turned into a choked laugh. “Cow,” he said, deadpan, before he burst into laughter. “Hell, Q, you’re damned talented and a fucking genius, but I might keep you around just to see you after naps, if this is how you always are.”

“Mornings are evil, even when they’re at dinnertime,” Q huffed. “I need coffee. And ice. But not together.” He paused. “Or maybe together.” Caffeine would surely fix it — whatever _it_ was that was niggling at the back of his brain. Something important had happened before he went to sleep, but he couldn’t remember what yet.

“Easy enough. Don’t touch anything. In fact, don’t move,” Bond said as he pulled down the huge lid to seal off the grill. He rested the fork on a side shelf and disappeared inside, leaving Q on the patio with the desolate view of a landscape full of heat and coyotes.

Everything here wanted to kill him, he remembered, even the damn plant life that looked more like green razors and black needles than the lush landscape it _should_ have been. He was suddenly terribly homesick; he’d never take rain and chilly gloom for granted ever again.

Bond returned with a cup of coffee and a plastic baggie full of ice. “You remember which one to drink and which to put on your hand, right?” he asked, amused.

Q took them from Bond, one in each hand, and let his brain process the logistics for a moment. _Coffee in right hand = more likely to drink without spilling. But right hand was burned. Ice in left hand to soothe right hand, but coffee in the way._

“Yes,” he said anyway. He dropped the ice on his knee and wrapped both hands around the mug out of habit. “Thanks.”

Bond grinned down at him, lifted a hand as if to touch, and then turned back to the grill. “There’s jacket potatoes, too. Hope that’s all right.”

The first swallow of coffee was enough to help start lifting the fog in his brain, as if his body knew that it was supposed to start waking up even before the caffeine hit his system. It would still take him at least another twenty minutes before he was fully functional, but it was a start.

“Why do they call them jacket potatoes?” he wondered aloud. “Skins aren’t jackets, or humans wouldn’t need them.”

With another choked-off laugh, Bond said, “They don’t, here. Americans call them ‘baked’ potatoes. Drink the coffee, Q.” He started gathering the food off the grill, using tongs to pull two huge slabs of ribs onto a serving plate, followed by piling four foil-wrapped potatoes into a bowl. “If Americans are starting to make sense, you need to go back home.”

“Home,” Q said, staring at his coffee. “Did you ever think you’d hate sunshine? I want to go sit in Trafalgar Square and just soak in the rain.”

Bond didn’t answer right away. When he did, his voice was so carefully controlled, it was almost brittle. “It rains all over the world. You’ll have to go without me.”

“I don’t know if I should ask why or not,” Q said sadly. “I’d give you a hug if it wouldn’t end up with me on the floor covered in spilled cow,” he added before his brain could catch up with his mouth.

Bond laughed, though his smile was reserved. “Can’t have that. I’ll put everything inside and then come back to collect you. Are we eating at the telly or the dining table?”

“I can fix it,” Q offered. Maybe there was an easy way out after all. “Alerts and lists and databases all fall to my whims, remember?”

Without looking back, Bond hesitated at the door to the house. “I’ll be right back,” he said tightly, and disappeared inside.

Q sighed and took another drink of his coffee. So much for that idea. Now that it was only three quarters full and less likely to spill, he moved the coffee from his right hand to the left and settled the ice over his burn. He was feeling much better now — or at least more awake. And he’d learned something important: Bond actually _did_ want to go home. It was obvious from his tone and body language that he missed England. Alec was right: Persuading him wasn’t going to be difficult. It was the ramifications of the act that Q really had to contend with.

Get Davis and whoever was behind him — that was step one. Q decided to focus on the immediate task first, and think about the rest later. If nothing else, at least he would have earned as much of Bond’s trust as he was able in a short amount of time and would have firmer ground to stand on. Maybe proving his willingness to help Bond take down someone in the MOD would help when he was forced to reveal himself as MI6.

Or maybe Bond would just shoot him anyway.

Q groaned and let his head fall back on his knees. Mornings were absolutely not the time to think about such things, even if it were five o’clock in the afternoon.

Bond returned, hands empty, and took away the coffee cup and bag of ice. “Can you make it to your feet, or should I carry you?” he asked in an amused tone.

“You’re an arse,” Q declared.

“That’s hardly news,” he answered, unruffled, and went back inside.

Chuckling, Q stood and stretched and followed.


	11. Chapter 11

**Tuesday, 12 February 2013**

Q was relieved to see that Bond had set the food up at the kitchen table rather than at the couch; as comfortable as it would have been, just the mere thought of barbeque sauce anywhere near Q’s components and equipment was enough to make him shudder. He cast a glance at his laptop, and the exciting events of earlier in the day came back to him in a rush — the run-in with Davis and Q’s near-miss with Bond all slammed back into his memory. As he carelessly flopped into his seat at the kitchen table, he hoped the flush of red he could feel climbing his neck to his ears would be mistaken for heat exposure.

“Anything good on the laptop?” he asked, pulling the ice and coffee closer.

“Are you awake enough to safely discuss it?” Bond started serving the food onto two plates. He’d apparently set the table earlier. There were two wine glasses, though he’d only filled one. The potatoes, now unwrapped, sat next to a bowl of shredded cheese and a dish of butter. Beside both plates were substantial piles of serviettes.

“Probably not,” Q confessed, pulling a serviette off the pile to unfold it on his lap. His stomach rumbled again, reminding him that he hadn’t had anything but coffee since this morning’s early breakfast, and he eyed the potatoes hungrily. “So if there’s anything you hope I won’t consciously remember, but will be stuck in my subconscious, you should start with that.” He took a pre-emptive drink of coffee before picking up his fork and stabbing one of the potatoes with it. It stuck to his fork satisfactorily, and Q giggled as he let it drop onto his plate with a thump. As much as he knew he was a childish idiot before he’d woken up, it had its perks — being able to laugh at stupidly entertaining things being one of them.

“Watch your arse, and stop taking bloody chances with your life. And your hands,” Bond said, and got up from the table, rather than starting on his food.

“Where did that phrase even come from?” Q wondered aloud. “‘Watch your arse,’ I mean. Physically, if you were to actually try to watch your arse, you’d never see anything coming.”

Bond laughed from the kitchen. “Or it’s to remind you to ask someone else to do it for you.” He returned with the coffee carafe and the sugar bowl. The bowl went onto the table before Bond topped up Q’s coffee and then set down the carafe.

“You’re very nice to me,” Q said happily, taking a deep inhale of coffee steam. He scooped sugar into the mug and took a drink before he went back to mashing his potato into submission.

Bond’s huff wasn’t entirely amused. “It’s my fault you’re in danger. But now at least I know more, and I can do something about it.” His eyes narrowed, focused on some distant point, before he turned his attention to moving a substantial slab of ribs from the serving try onto his plate. “You’re a better field operative than you think, Q.”

Q didn’t know whether he should be alarmed by that or not, and was still too foggy to try and think it through. He tucked it away for later consideration and scooped butter onto his potato. “I don’t want to do the sort of work you do,” he confessed. “Whatever illusions I had about it when we first met have long since evaporated. I like my computers and logic and predictive modelling. And building things.”

“I can get you out. Just do as I say, and you’ll have enough money to live until you get another job, and you’ll never see me or Davis or any of his men again,” Bond said, looking across the table at Q. “I’m not letting you put yourself in danger.”

Now _that_ was alarming. Q set his fork and knife down and stared at Bond, wondering what had just happened. “I meant the face-to-face stuff, not the lifestyle all together,” he said carefully. “I like it here, with you. Well, not _here_ here, but, you know...” Q shook his head. “Bloody unfair to try and kick me out when I’m just awake and not able to protest clearly.”

“This _is_ my life, Q,” Bond said, his voice going sharp. “It’s not safe. It’s not easy. It’s fucking dangerous when it’s going right, and when it’s not, it’s just fucked. You don’t need to be a part of it. You — you should be getting rich off some bloody corporation, back in school, married to some nice girl with two and a half children and a bloody shih-tzu.”

“That sounds horrifying,” Q said with annoyance. “Safe and easy is _not_ my style, or haven’t you figured that out yet? If it were, I’d be working for Apple or Microsoft rather than building high tech, high casualty weaponry. Just because I was thrown by Davis doesn’t mean I want out.”

Bond started prying one of the ribs off the slab. “You’re not awake enough to be making decisions.”

“What did you find on the laptop that’s got you so spooked?” He dumped extra sugar in his coffee, sensing he was going to need the boost.

“Not spooked. I’m planning.” Bond picked up the separated rib and tore into the meat with his teeth, disdaining the use of the knife and fork. That explained the piles of serviettes everywhere. “Once I’m out of the country, your part’s done.”

“Huh. Performed that badly, did I, that a pet genius isn’t so attractive anymore?” Q stabbed his fork into the potato with irritation, forgetting for a moment what his actual goal here was. He took a deep breath and tried to refocus. Goddamn Bond for springing this crap on him when he wasn’t awake yet. England. He just had to get Bond back to England. He focused on his coffee, trying to figure out if he needed to formulate a new plan. If he were still going to work through Bond’s wrangling of Davis, then he may not have to change anything. In fact, if Bond was planning on leaving America anyway, it might make things just that much easier for Q, as long as he played his part well.

“What part of ‘I want you safe’ did you miss?” Bond snapped. “I was worried enough about you going after Davis before you told me you’d _made contact_. Do you think I want you getting yourself killed? Or worse?”

“I didn’t though,” Q pointed out. “I assessed the situation appropriately, executed the only plan available to me, and got you the data you needed, and more. I’m not completely incompetent, James. I’m a good partner for you. And I just told you I’m not likely to repeat that sort of action — I can provide support from here, where it’s more or less safe.”

“And when I leave? I was supposed to go to Mexico from here, Q. Do you know what’s in Mexico? Drugs, corrupt cops, and prey. And then I’ll probably end up back in fucking Africa or the Middle East. Is that the life you want?”

“How will I know until I try? It certainly sounds better than a windowless office and a daily commute through the ghetto at night to me,” Q huffed. “Besides, these sorts of real-world problems are fascinating to work on. They’ve captured my interest and attention and, hell, my imagination in a way that nothing has in a very long time. Hardware and software and people and bringing it all together...” Q looked up at Bond and wondered if ‘fun’ would be an inappropriate word to use at the moment. “And I’m good at it,” he added instead.

Bond stared across the table at Q, and something like guilt crossed his face. Then he turned his attention back to dinner, tapping the end of the rib on his plate. “You are.” He sounded upset about that, almost angry.

Q let it pass, silently drinking his coffee, staring out the window. He needed to get his balance again, keep himself focused. This didn’t change anything, and he didn’t need to argue anymore.

More importantly, he couldn’t let himself focus on the fact that Bond seemed to be becoming emotionally attached to him, which was something he hadn’t counted on at all. Protectiveness was one thing; Q knew that attachment wasn’t necessary for a naturally dominant person to want to defend and protect those who seemed weaker. But putting that desire above a job or mission? Bond hadn’t exactly done that yet, but he had offered. He was also willing to send Q away despite his proven usefulness, thereby making future missions more difficult.

Q sighed. Finish the job. Keep Bond’s trust, get him back to England. That was all he had to do.

“Tell me about the plan, James.”

Instead of answering immediately, Bond ripped off another rib and tore off the meat bite by bite, only glancing at Q before he looked back down. His earlier enjoyment of the meal had vanished; he was eating methodically, as though solely concerned with sustenance.

“I know who Davis is working for,” he finally said. “I need to take care of him, or he won’t stop. And I’m not going to allow you to help me.”

“Davis is MOD. So unless he’s jeopardising his rank just for the fun of it, he’s working for someone else within Defence. I won’t allow you to take that on by yourself. It won’t end well for you.” Q thought about pressing for the name he already suspected, but he decided to try to lighten the mood instead. “My, how far we’ve come from ‘I’d tell you but I’d have to kill you.’”

“That’s all you get,” Bond warned, dropping the bone. He ripped off a third, not bothering with his knife and fork. “I’m not putting you on a bloody Border Agency watchlist because of me.”

Q snorted. “As if I’d stay there. That’s actually insulting, after you’ve seen what I can do.” He bit his tongue against reminding Bond that he wanted to clear international travel for him, too; he needed to stay focused on keeping himself in the game.

“You’ve made your bloody feelings —” Bond cut off, staring across the table. Then he dropped his food, snatched up a handful of serviettes, and stood. “You’re not coming with me. You can help me catch Davis, if you want. I need intel from him that he won’t keep electronically. Or I can hide you in California or anywhere else in the bloody country until this is all over.”

“We’ll start with Davis, and go from there,” Q said, staring at Bond, unwilling to concede more than that. When Bond looked ready to argue, Q held up his hand. “I’m going to take this opportunity to remind you that I had to copy Davis’ files to my personal server, not my laptop, in case something happened to me and my laptop was compromised. I have _all_ the data, James. I’m not going to look at it yet, because...” He swallowed uncomfortably. “But I don’t want to see you run into something head-first, knowing you’re not going to make it without me. So we’ll just approach this step by step, all right?”

Bond closed his eyes for a moment and nodded. “All right.” Then he walked away from the table, circling around behind Q to go to the kitchen.

Feeling like he’d just escaped being sucked into a black hole, Q took a deep breath. If Bond was going to go after Breckenridge, it basically amounted to treason — which was probably where Bond was going with his cut-off comment about Q’s feelings. If that were the case, then Q knew he had to meticulously document _everything_. Then, when they were finished with Davis, Q would have enough to present to MI6, using it as an opportunity to both bring Bond back into the fold, and prevent him from going on a suicide mission. Hell, Alec would jump at the opportunity to help. It could end up being a way for them to bond as friends again, Q thought wryly.

He listened as Bond got something out of the cupboard — probably the one where the alcohol was stored. Then, almost silently, Bond crossed the house and went out the back door.

Q finished his coffee and took his cup, the carafe, the sugar, and his spoon back over to his little nest. His stomach rumbled again, but it was no use; his appetite, fickle as it was, had vanished. For now, he needed the distraction of work. As he settled on the floor by the coffee table, he looked around at the components, trying to decide what to build next.

Bond had mentioned non-electronic documents. A phone camera could take care of it, but a hand scanner would still be far more efficient. A coyote bark caught his ear, and he reflexively looked out the window to see if he could catch a glimpse of one of the little bastards. Instead, he saw Bond silhouetted against the darkening sky, where the setting sun painted the western clouds blood red. He was standing at the patio wall, a glowing cigarette visible in his hand, a bottle on the wall beside him. With his back turned, Q could see the edge of a gun holstered at the small of his back, visible under his rucked-up shirt.

As much as Q preferred rationality and logic to emotion, there was little he could do to stop the wave of sadness he felt for Bond in that moment. Betrayed by his country, haunted by something that wasn’t his fault, and probably now berating himself for dragging Q into the whole treasonous mess. Q shoved away his own guilt for his upcoming betrayal, telling himself it was a means to a much better end. He picked up his screwdriver and the cheap Canon scanner he’d ordered with his components. He stood and walked quietly out to the patio.

Bond’s head turned slightly. “You didn’t eat enough. You already look like you’re bloody starving,” he muttered into the darkness before he raised his cigarette and took a drag. Smoke cut through the woody, slightly bitter smell of the desert.

“I’m sure I’ll raid the leftovers later,” Q responded quietly. He brushed his fingers along the back of the scanner, finding the screws by touch. He brought his screwdriver up and starting working at them, not caring if they got lost in the darkness. He let each tiny screw drop to the wood, pinging what felt like loudly in silence.

Bond turned to glance at Q. “What’s that?” he asked, his voice rough. He lifted the bottle and took a drink, disdaining the use of a glass. It was almost too dark to see, but his eyes were on Q’s hands, not his face.

“A scanner. You said you need to get non-electronic documents. I’m going to make it easier for you by building a smaller, easier-to-conceal handheld version that will work with your mobile.” The final screw fell with a ping, and Q pulled the plastic lid off.

Bond let out a sharp laugh. “Not documents, Q. Intel,” he said, his voice strained. He turned away and set down the bottle so he could take another deep drag on his cigarette. “Human intelligence.”

“Oh,” Q said quietly, abruptly reminded of the damn video. “I don’t think I can build anything for that. Maybe beef up the voice recorder on your mobile.”

It took Bond a moment to exhale smoke into the night air before saying, “If you’d like, that could be helpful.”

Q flipped the scanner in his hands and started working on the underside anyway. He needed _something_ to do with his hands. The tension was getting to him, but he didn’t know what to do about it. “I’m after the CCD chip inside. Charge coupled device. There are all sorts of nifty things you can make with a CCD. I probably could have just ordered the chip, but it’s just as much fun to take this thing apart like a puzzle. And I can use the other components in other projects.”

“What’s the CCD for? My knowledge of electronics is limited to demolitions and breaking things.” Bond laughed a little too roughly. He rubbed his free hand across the back of his neck, still looking out towards the west.

“It’s actually pretty neat, really,” Q said, latching onto a familiar topic. “It captures something in the physical world and translates it into a digital signal. Which doesn’t sound impressive, if you just think about cameras and document scanners, but I’ve always found it a little magical. With enough CCDs, and some of my own modifications, I could put you in the middle of them and replicate your 3D image. I mean, I like the real thing better, but it’s the challenge of it.”

“Why not do that for a living?” Bond took a battered pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his jeans and shook another one out. He dropped the pack on the wall next to the bottle. “If you can build those sorts of things, what do you want with me? Go to Hollywood. Film the next damn Matrix.”

Q set the scanner and screwdriver down with a sigh. “You’re much more interesting than Hollywood.”

Bond sighed and lit the fresh cigarette off the other. He rolled the butt between his fingers until the lit end dropped off onto the patio, away from his bare feet. “Fine.” He blew out fresh smoke. “You want to learn the business?”

That sounded alarming; last time Bond had said something like that, in that tone of voice, he started describing how the batons Q had bought were capable of ripping a man to shreds. “I just want to help you, James,” he said quietly. “I’m a hacker and a weapons builder. Useful.”

“If I don’t die on this next job, I’ll teach you everything I know. In ten years, you could run your own militia.”

“You want to keep me around for ten years?” Q teased. “I’m down to doing my dissertation. I can fake the paperwork for the internship and still get my degree. Doctor Mister Head of My Own Militia.”

“You’re not a field operative. You might just have a chance at making it to retirement age.”

Q stood there quietly, silently wondering if Bond were serious. If he really would have taught Q everything he knew, and if he really would have wanted him around for that long. _Emotional attachment_ , he reminded himself bitterly. He was almost disappointed that it really wasn’t an option, thanks to MI6; he’d never been _wanted_ by anyone like that.

Of course, it wasn’t for anything but his usefulness, he tried to tell himself. Of course Bond would want him around; Q was a technological genius. People all over the world would pay big money to have him on their team. He hoped that there was more to it, but he didn’t think it was the best time to try and kiss Bond again. Instead, he leaned around him and grabbed the liquor bottle.

Bond’s hand touched Q’s shoulder. “Is that wise?” he asked, sounding concerned.

“You’re tense, and I’m tense, and if I can’t...” Q glanced at Bond, wanting to reach out for him. Instead, he took a drink of the liquor — a strong, smoky whisky — and grinned down at it. “Thank god it’s not vodka.”

Bond’s fingers tightened on his shoulder for a moment, and he murmured what Q thought was “Alec’s drink.”

“Alec?” Q asked, glad for the cover of darkness. He hadn’t expected _that_ at all.

Pulling his hand away, Bond looked sharply at him and said, “No one. You said you got your tracker on Davis’ laptop? Can you find out where he’s staying?”

 _God, poor Bond,_ Q thought sadly. He didn’t deserve this lonely fucking life. Q wouldn’t feel guilty about the betrayal anymore if it meant reuniting Bond with his best friend.

“Yes,” Q said evenly, taking another drink. He held up the bottle with a raised eyebrow.

Bond took it and drank, closing his eyes for a moment, barely visible in the faint ambient light spilling through the living room windows and door. “I’ll scout it tomorrow, and then retrieve him tomorrow night. I’ll let you know if there’s any digging I need you to do, once I have some names and locations.”

“All right,” Q responded simply, taking the bottle back. He’d insist on keeping Bond on an open line of communication so he could keep things running as smoothly as possible from his end — even if it meant simply controlling traffic lights. But that could wait until tomorrow. “I’ll need to work on your mobile, but not tonight.” He took another drink, feeling the burn creep down his throat to warm his stomach. “No food and too much whisky won’t make for good coding.”

“You’ve earned the time off. Besides, I want you healthy. Starting with you eating your damned dinner,” Bond said firmly. He took the bottle away from Q and nudged him back towards the door. “Go eat, Q.”

“What am I supposed to do with time off?” he wondered aloud, stooping to retrieve the partially deconstructed scanner and his screwdriver. “Maybe it’s time to work on the biometric scanner for the Glock.”

Bond sighed and snapped the end off his half-smoked cigarette. He dropped the butt next to the pack and took hold of Q’s arm to steer him inside. “Or you can eat in front of the telly and find us a movie to watch. You’ve had more than enough to drink on a mostly empty stomach. I’m not leaving you unsupervised.”

“Why not? You’ve seen me drunk. I’m worse when I’ve first woken up. Though I give you permission to yell at me if I go near the soldering iron.” He frowned, wondering if he should re-wrap his hand before the alcohol actually did kick in. He dropped the scanner gently on his work area and flopped on the couch. “Let’s watch _The Avengers_. And I’m still not hungry yet, but I promise I’ll eat later.”

“ _The Avengers_? You’ve seen it, haven’t you? You must have done,” Bond said, though he didn’t argue. He set the whisky down well out of Q’s reach and sprawled on the opposite corner of the couch. Then he sat forward and drew his handgun, which he set on the side table before he relaxed again.

“Worth rewatching for all the eye candy,” Q said with a smirk, reaching forward to grab at the scanner. The world tilted slightly, and Q was surprised to find himself more affected than he thought he’d be after what basically amounted to three shots. That must have been strong liquor. He settled the scanner in his lap and focused on the screws around the glass bed, only to have Bond take the scanner and screwdriver away.

“You’re already burned, Q. I don’t want you bleeding as well.”

Q glared at him. “What am I supposed to do, then? I already said I wouldn’t use the welder. I mean, Jeremy Renner is very distracting, but not _that_ distracting. I need something to do.”

Bond gave him a quick, startled look. “Try Scarlett Johansson,” he said, sounding a bit baffled, as he put everything on the floor under the coffee table. He handed Q the remote instead. “There. Figure out all the damn buttons.”

“Scarlett isn’t my type. She’s pretty, but I haven’t had much luck with redheads. The Australian and Loki are hot too, but no... It’s Hawkeye, hands down.” He looked down at the remote before looking up to glare at Bond again. “Buttons? Seriously? Can I have my screwdriver back? I bet I can make it better.”

“No drunk engineering,” Bond said firmly, still staring at him strangely. “And that’s our only remote, so no sober re-engineering it, either.”

“God, James, you really can be no fun sometimes,” Q said, feeling annoyed. “I can’t just sit and watch telly. I’ll be bored out of my skull.” He turned to smile wickedly at Bond. If Bond refused Q all his normal methods of distraction, Q could find other ways to entertain himself. “May I have another drink please?” he asked innocently.

Bond gave Q a very uncertain look, but he picked up the bottle and handed it over. “Just one. And I’m getting you food once the credits roll. Start the bloody movie already.”

“Such impatience,” Q scolded as he turned everything on, taking another drink, adding shot number four to his mental tally of whiskey consumed. He tucked the bottle to his side, opposite Bond, and started scrolling through the satellite options. Either one of two things would happen, he decided. One possibility was that Bond would try and take the bottle away, and there would be some fun wrestling. Q was no match for Bond, but he was wiry and fast; he could probably drag the game out if Bond was intent on not hurting him. The other possibility was that he would leave Q to it, and he might very possibly fall asleep. As much as he used his insomnia to his advantage, sometimes he craved sleep with an ache that was as much emotional as physical. In his experience, it would take at least four more shots to get him close to comatose, but it would mean at least four hours of rest. That, in addition to the two he’d got earlier, would practically be bliss.

Q found the movie, put it on, and waited. As the movie started to play, Bond leaned over to retrieve the whisky.

“Hah!” Q said with a smirk, shoving Bond away. “Predictable.”

“What are you talking about?”

Q took another drink — this one not quite a full shot; he was starting to think he wanted to stretch this out — and grinned. He tucked the bottle away before Bond could snatch at it. “Nevermind.”

“Give me that,” Bond demanded, holding out his hands with a little twitch of his fingers. “You’ve had too much already.”

Q chuckled, then turned his eyes to the screen. The odds of wrestling went up the moment he was apparently distracted. “Hawkeye doesn’t actually have much screen time. Let me indulge in the eye candy first, then we’ll talk about it.”

Bond eyed Q and the whisky as though evaluating his own odds. Then he settled back into his own corner of the sofa, keeping watch on Q, not quite turning his attention to the movie.

Q watched as Loki made his glorious entrance, smiling. He turned to settle more comfortably with his back to the arm of the couch, and tucked his feet under Bond’s thigh. “You’ve seen this before, right? Do you mind if I skip ahead a ways? To where the aliens start taking over?”

“The end of the movie, you mean,” Bond said wryly. “By all means, assuming you’re sober enough to operate the remote.”

“I don’t understand people who can sit and pay attention to a television for any length of time,” Q confessed, picking up the remote. “I love a good movie as much as the next person, but only if I can do something else at the same time. Since you’ve effectively taken away anything else to hold my attention, you’ll either have to entertain me, or deal with it.”

Bond stared at him as he skipped ahead through the chapters to the climactic end battle. When Q pressed play again, Bond leaned down and picked up Q’s laptop. He started swiping at the touchpad, and then frowned and got up — leaving Q’s feet cold — to sort through the cables and power supplies woven through Q’s nest of electronics.

“Ooh, have something for me to do? Somewhere to hack? A small nation to bring down, maybe?” Q asked, watching him curiously. “You know, you have much better upper arms than Jeremy Renner.”

“Will you _stop_ already?” Bond snapped. He found the power cable to Q’s laptop and sat back down an inch closer to the armrest on his side of the sofa, just clear of Q’s feet. He picked up the laptop to plug it in. “Christ, Q, I’m not going to throw you out. What the hell kind of monster do you think I am?”

“Throw me out?” Q asked, frowning. “What did I do?”

“Nothing. So _stop_ hinting. I don’t need to fuck everyone I protect.” Bond tapped the touchpad and glared at the screen.

“What?” Q leaned back, then tucked his legs underneath him, thinking. Protective. _Nice_ to Q. Gentle with him, against all odds. Q got up to his knees and shuffled closer to Bond. “You wouldn’t hurt me, I bet.”

Bond let out a sharp, frustrated breath, not looking up from the laptop. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’ve told you that. If you feel like drinking on an empty stomach until you pass out, you’re a grown man — that’s your business.”

“It’s all just tense and complicated and...” Q shook his head. “You don’t get to be mad, I don’t think.” He settled next to Bond, staring at the laptop. “I’m just saying. You wouldn’t hurt me. And you have arms better than Jeremy Renner. And I...” Q sighed and reached for the whisky, conscious of how Bond’s gaze flicked over him before returning to the screen.

“You’re tired, injured, drunk, and possibly starving,” Bond said flatly. He tapped the touchpad a couple of times, opening a file. “Stop pretending you’re suddenly not straight. Go eat something or go to bed. You probably won’t even remember this in the morning.”

“I never said I was straight. I said I’m not gay. You’re probably a lot better than they were, from what little I heard from Gi... Gia... whatever her name was.” Q leaned on Bond, peering at the laptop. “Do you need help with something?”

Bond looked at him again, this time suspiciously, before he shook his head and went back to swiping the touchpad. “I’m locating Davis,” he said after a moment. “Who are ‘they’?”

“Uni boyfriends.” Q smiled proudly. “If you don’t like the interface, you can use the program I set up on your mobile instead. It’s much more intuitive, and you can cross reference locations with the maps program you have on there. So it will tell you right away if he’s at a coffee shop or gun shop... both of which seem equally likely in this place.”

“‘Uni boyfriends’,” Bond quoted in a mutter, shaking his head. He kept tapping and said, more loudly, “This is fine. Watch the movie.”

“It just didn’t seem worth it — all... all _that_ for a reach-around.” Q snorted. “We should go to bed.”

“No.”

“Why not?” Q picked up the bottle, stared at it for a moment, then offered it to Bond.

“You’re drunk, starved, half-asleep, not interested — take your pick.” Bond took the bottle and put it on the floor beside the couch, out of Q’s reach. “Watch the movie.”

“I’m not drunk, I’m tipsy,” Q protested. “And I’m not starved, either. I’m just not a fan of eating when I don’t feel like it. And I _am_ interested. I tried to kiss you, remember? And you wouldn’t hurt me... though I suspect that if I tried to kiss you now you might shove me off the couch.”

Bond took a deep breath and turned to look directly at Q for the first time in far too long. “It’s chemical, Q. You had a scare, and now your mind’s telling you that you’re safe. You want to stay safe, and the best way to do that is to keep me happy. And somewhere in your head, you’ve decided that means sex. And _I’m_ telling you, that’s not going to happen.”

“Keep you happy?” Q said with some disbelief. “I find that more than just a little insulting. As if I’m not capable...” He shook his head, then leaned it against Bond’s shoulder. “I know damn well just keeping you in excellent weaponry and information, and not interrupting your seductions, would keep you happy. I’ve done an awful lot for you and haven’t asked for anything.” Q turned his attention to the movie, ignoring the laptop. “I can keep myself safe. Hell, with a gun and a laptop, I could probably take over the world.”

“Watch the movie,” Bond said tightly as he opened the location map on the laptop.

Q grinned at his tone of voice, his tension. Bond wanted him, that he was sure of. If Q could just tempt him a little more, maybe he wouldn’t end up going to bed alone again. It would be a nice change, he decided, to be the little spoon again. He turned his head his brush his lips against Bond’s upper arm, then kept turning his head to watch the movie, smirking.

Bond snapped the laptop lid down and leaned forward, dislodging Q. He shoved the laptop onto the coffee table, scattering screws and components as he stood. “I’m going to find Davis,” he announced, picking his way through the minefield on the floor.

Q groaned and let himself flop over on the couch, using his arm as a pillow. He watched Banner morph into the Hulk dispassionately. “Don’t die,” he muttered, curling up. He refused to watch Bond, focusing instead on the sleek designs of the alien ships. “Can you bring me my mobile and gun before you go?”

Bond didn’t answer, though a minute later, he walked over and dropped Q’s mobile over the back of the couch. “You get the gun when you’re sober. Don’t leave the house,” he said, walking away.


	12. Chapter 12

**Wednesday, 13 February 2013**

This time, Q woke to the sound of running water, the unfamiliar feel of what was definitely not a bed, and the initial harbingers of what would surely be a _spectacular_ hangover as soon as he was fully conscious. He opened his eyes hesitantly; the telly was showing a channel selection screen with a scrolling display of programmes. The window overlooking the patio showed a sky that was dark but not quite midnight black. Slowly, he deciphered the sounds to recognise both the washing machine and a shower.

Very slowly, Q sat up, squinting in the darkness. His glasses were crooked, and a quick check revealed that he had an indent along the side of his face where the side of the glasses had pressed into his skin. He pulled them off and glared at them before rubbing them clean on his T-shirt.

Q stood gingerly and wandered out to the kitchen. He wanted tea, but coffee was probably going to serve him better. He stood staring at the kitchen counter, trying to decide between them, when he realised he was staring at a mobile and laptop — neither of which were his. It took him a long moment to realise they were Davis’. It took him an even longer moment to realise that the red smears weren’t from the Arizona mud.

Tea _and_ coffee. That would solve it.

The coffee pot took just a touch to coax it into brewing. The tea was more complicated, but Q managed it without electrocuting himself or starting a house fire. He avoided looking at Davis’ electronics and instead went to the fridge. Last night’s dinner was wrapped neatly in plastic.

He’d just poured the first cup of coffee and had tea brewing in the pot when he heard the shower turn off. After a minute, Bond came out of the master bedroom, wearing casual, faded blue jeans. He was holding a gauze pad over his side, and Q recalled only then that he’d been shot — grazed still counted as being shot — just a few days ago. Bond hesitated a moment, seeing Q, and then kept walking.

“Go back to bed,” he said as he went right to the fridge. Q got out of the way, and Bond reached in for a bottle of water. His hands, Q noted, were freshly abraded, and he had a couple of new dark bruises on his chest.

“I’ve slept for, what? Ten hours out of the last sixteen? I’ll be up for days,” Q muttered, shuffling back to the kitchen table. He kept his eyes on Bond instead of the electronics. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.” Bond cracked open the water bottle, tossed the cap on the counter, and washed down two white pills. “I’m leaving the country for a few days. You can stay here. It’s safe now.”

“You’re taking me with you, remember? Ten years. Verbal contract.” Q stared down at his coffee, then got back up again. “Tea or coffee? I’m having both.”

“I’m not taking you where I’m going. I’ll come back for you after. I still have a job to do here. It’s just going to be delayed,” Bond said grimly. “I shouldn’t be more than a week, if I don’t end up dead. If I do” — he hesitated, then shrugged — “you’ll know what to do.”

“Right. Like that’s incentive for me to stay here. I’m not your minion. I’m as competent for my part as you are for yours.” Q yawned, trying to remember where they were going. “Haven’t we had this conversation already? And the one about not springing important issues on me when I’m within twenty minutes of waking up?”

Bond set down his water bottle and went to the counter, where the tape still sat after his efforts to bandage Q’s hand yesterday. He put down the gauze and started ripping strips off the tape. “Fine. If you’re not going to remember anyway, it doesn’t matter. I’m going back to England. I plan on killing a high-ranking military officer. So you’re _fucking staying here_ instead of committing treason.”

“Treason. There are degrees of treason.” Q groaned. “You’re not killing an innocent or blowing up the Tube. It’s way too fucking early for this, James.”

Apparently Bond didn’t need Q to convince him to go back to England after all. This was the part where Q was supposed to tell him about MI6, about Alec, about the resources he had available to him, about the evidence that they had amassed. He cast a glance at Bond’s mobile, knowing that Davis’ confession was recorded there.

But Bond couldn’t have picked a worse time for the conversation. It wasn’t just morning. It was morning with a killer hangover. Well, at least the plane ride might give him some time.

“Oh, god,” he whispered, dropping his head into his hands. “A plane. Fuck.”

Without looking up from arranging the tape around the edge of the gauze, Bond said, “You’re not coming. I told you last night, I’ll keep you safe, and that means you’re not any more involved in this than you already are.” He pressed the gauze to his wounded side and started smoothing the tape against his skin.

“Last night?” Q repeated, staring at Bond’s bare skin. The foggy memory of watching a movie, of arguing, of brushing his lips against Bond’s arm drifted to the surface. “Just because you don’t want to sleep with me doesn’t mean I’m going to stop helping you,” he pointed out with annoyance. Annoyance was good, he realised, glad that the hangover had some use after all. Annoyance was much, much preferable to embarrassed blushing. “I’m going.”

“I won’t fuck you when you’re drunk and crashing from adrenaline,” Bond said, looking directly at him. “I prefer my partners awake and able to consent.” He picked up the water bottle and headed for the bedroom, gesturing at the electronics as he passed the edge of the counter. “You can look there, see if there’s anything to be found. If there’s a password, try something with Temeraire or 1798.”

“Passwords. Flimsy excuses for security,” Q muttered. He watched Bond go, thinking that if he were even just a little less hungover, he’d be tempted to chase him and tackle him to the bed. He needed to convince Bond to let him go back to England, too. But that meant getting on a plane. And he’d have to text Alec.  And figure out how to talk to Bond without getting himself in a very bad spot.

Q had finished his coffee and a cup of tea and was well into his second cup of coffee before he padded out to the living room. It was force of habit more than actual necessity that had him cracking his laptop open — if Davis were dead, there was no one left to track in Arizona. He stared at the screen for a minute, wondering what he should do next, before he realised that there was a post-it stuck to the screen.

It was Alec’s contact information. His _current_ contact information — the same number Q had. The note read: _Don’t contact him unless I’m dead. He’ll keep you safe._

Q slammed the laptop shut and rubbed his temples. Had Bond contacted Alec directly? Had he used old contacts to get the information? Should he check his other phone to see if Alec had tried to get hold of him? _Damn spies,_ he thought miserably.

He tossed the laptop aside and got up. He was fairly certain that he’d be able to see it on Bond’s face if he knew anything about Q and wasn’t saying. More importantly, he needed to make sure Bond wasn’t going to leave him here in Hell, America.

He stopped in the kitchen to refill his coffee before he headed to the master bedroom. He found Bond sitting in the window, smoking, eyes closed. Q thought again about what a ridiculously lonely life Bond led, and how close Q was to getting it all back for him.

“I hope you have good contacts, because I’m going to need something before we go. Lorazepam or diazepam. Xanax if it’s all you can find, but then I’ll have to chase it with alcohol,” he said quietly. “I hate flying.”

With a sigh, Bond asked, “Did you miss when I said you’re staying?”

“You said you haven’t been in England in years, James. Given the nature of the work you do, I doubt that whatever contacts you used to have there are still viable resources. You need me.”

“I have money. That’s just as good.” He exhaled a long stream of smoke, most of which ended up in the room, and turned to look back at Q. In the thin first light of morning, barely turning the sky to sea blue, the bruises on his chest looked dark and ghastly. “I’m not dragging you into this any more than you already are. Why don’t you understand that?”

It would be sweet if it weren’t so annoying, Q decided. He set his coffee on the dresser and walked over to Bond, looking fondly down at him. Knowing that he’d have to let Bond go when this was all over made the next decision impossibly stupid, but Q couldn’t stop himself. He leaned down, giving Bond every opportunity to stop him, and lightly kissed him.

Bond’s fingertips touched Q’s hip so lightly that he almost didn’t feel them through his jeans. He made no effort to deepen the kiss, though he also didn’t pull away until Q backed off. Then he opened his eyes, studying Q’s expression suspiciously, as if trying to read Q’s thoughts.

Q’s first heated flash of anger burned out before he could draw breath to snap at Bond. Q was better with computers than with people, but he wasn’t an idiot. He realised Bond’s suspicion was the learned reaction of someone for whom intimacy and affection were just more currency, perhaps easier spent than intimidation or fear. There was no room in Bond’s life for simple intimacy; the closest he could hope for was meaningless sex with strangers.

“It’s not a matter of not understanding what you’re saying, James. I’m just not acquiescing.”

“I’m _not_ bringing you to England,” he said, drawing back two inches — as far as he could get without climbing out the window. “This isn’t going to convince me to change my mind.”

“I’m not trying to convince you. I’m showing you why I can’t let you go by yourself.” And it was true, Q realised. At this point, he could probably just let Bond board the plane and be greeted in an England where his enemy was detained and a job offer was on the table. But he knew that ridiculously, emotionally, neither of them was ready for that. Bond needed closure (and revenge) on Breckenridge. And Q wasn’t ready to let him walk into that without him.

“With a hung-over shag?” Bond snapped. “I’m _certain_ I can find more than enough of that back — in England.”

Q took a deep breath, trying to keep his anger under control. He remembered Alec’s words about Bond’s protective instinct, and his propensity try to scare someone off for their own good. He told himself this was the same thing.

He turned and sat back down on the bed. “I told you it’s fine if you don’t want me. But I’m still not letting you get yourself killed. Though I may be tempted to kill you myself if you make me take that plane ride alone.” He gave Bond a lopsided grin.

“Do you _never_ want to go back to England?” Bond demanded, twisting on the windowsill to face Q. He tapped ash onto the carpet. “You’re barely twenty. Do you want to be exiled for _the rest of your life_?”

“I don’t have any family, James. No friends, really. I can keep my name and face out of any database I want. I’m used to that sort of hypervigilance. And if” — he scrambled to recall his false name, in his fuzzy state — “Adalbert Q. Dzwonek has to disappear to become John Smith, it will be fine. I told you, I can do the same for you if you want.” Q looked sympathetically at him, knowing how much he wanted to go back. “I’ll keep us in the clear for as long as you need. Want, even.”

“Why? You don’t need money — not if you can just steal it. You have no idea who I am. You’re entirely capable of finding your own excitement — safer or more hazardous, whatever the hell you prefer. So _why_?”

Q stared at him, trying to think through his answer. His first instinct was to say something about Bond not hurting him, but he knew that would crash and burn spectacularly. Any plea about attraction would be nearly as foolish. He didn’t want to see Bond get killed, but the _why_ of it was what Bond was looking for.

“I care about you,” he finally said truthfully.

Bond nodded, twisting to pitch his dying cigarette out the window. He leaned down to pick up the pack on the floor and shook out another one. “I could almost believe it, except for one problem,” he said, before he put the cigarette in his mouth and dug a lighter out of his pocket. “The timing. You had your chance the other night — plenty of chances, actually — only your body language has never been quite _right_.” He flicked the lighter and set the flame to the cigarette, inhaling.

A little nervously, Q rose and got his coffee from the dresser. He sat back down on the side of the bed, closest to Bond, and took a sip, watching silently as Bond gathered his thoughts.

Finally, Bond said, “You came looking for me at the restaurant. You make it look like you don’t have a fucking clue about self-defence — set yourself up as a novice. The batons, the shooting range” — he took another drag — “and then you show up at _just_ the right moment, because you’re intercepting my fucking texts? You’ve had more than enough chances to get in bed with me, only that’s not what you wanted until now, when I’m leaving the country without you. So what the bloody hell am I supposed to think, Adalbert?”

“I’m not nearly as paranoid as you, so I can’t guess,” Q said with an amused chuckle that he didn’t feel. He set his coffee cup on the bedside table and sprawled back on the bed, avoiding eye contact. He could get out of this without lying, he realised; hopefully that would save him. He suddenly wished he had sent Alec an update, in case Bond didn’t believe him and tried to incapacitate him. At least if he did, Q was still likely to wake up and get things set up before Bond’s plane landed.

Unless Bond killed him. In which case, Q decided, he was absolved of his duty to either Bond or MI6 entirely.

“I _am_ a novice, which I should think would be painfully obvious to you. I’m a genius with a self-destructive streak, and you proved yourself an irresistible challenge. A fucking _mercenary_.” He chuckled again. “And I wouldn’t call the invitation to a threesome ‘plenty of opportunities’.” He sighed and glared darkly at the ceiling. “Besides, it took me a while to come around to the realisation that you wouldn’t... That it could be...” He tried to remember exactly what he had said the night before. “I’ve avoided men for a long time. Sorry you reawoke my interest at an inconvenient time.”

 _There_ , he thought bitterly. _Not a single lie_.

“You had your chance before Giacinta. You were _very_ clear about your lack of interest — in body language as well as your words. Even now, you’re not _interested_. You want something.”

Q sat up and, in the same fit of inadvisable rage that had him punching Alec, threw a pillow at Bond. “I don't need to sit here and listen to you analyse my fucking sexuality, James. What the fuck is wrong with you? I _thought_ you wouldn’t hurt me for it, but whatever.” He grabbed his coffee and stood. “And if you think I need anything from you to keep track of you, to go home, to help you, then you’re a bigger idiot than I thought.”

Bond was on his feet and in front of Q faster than expected. He grabbed Q’s arm, splashing warm coffee out of the mug, and pulled him back so they were face-to-face. “ _Hurt_ you? This is my fucking _life_! You keep throwing out reasons for me to stop trusting you. Don’t even _think_ I’ve hurt you —”

He cut himself off, tensing, and abruptly shoved Q away. “Get out,” he snarled, turning back and stalking for the window.

“I _meant_ sex, genius!” Q snapped back at him, heart racing. _Fucking idiot_ , he thought bitterly as he escaped while he could.

At least this made everything else easier, he decided, stalking back out to the living room. He’d leave, call Alec, get everything in place. Q’s division of Technical Services Section didn’t have much interaction with Double O’s. Hopefully once Bond had his revenge, he wouldn’t come hunting for Q.

Not that Bond would get the revenge he wanted, Q thought with vicious satisfaction. Q would take Davis’ laptop and mobile, scrub them for data, and have it in MI6 hands before Bond had even crossed the Atlantic. MI6 — or, more properly, MI5 — would take Admiral Breckinridge into custody. There’d be a lengthy investigation followed by a court martial. Bond wouldn’t lay a finger on him.

But there was the awkward matter of Davis. Q stopped in the kitchen, looking at the bloody laptop, and thought about the bruises on Bond’s chest. His abraded knuckles. The clothes that were in the washing machine.

He thought about the video he’d seen of the interrogation. Q didn’t doubt for an instant that Davis was out in the desert somewhere, left for the coyotes and vultures or in a shallow grave or under a few hundred pounds of rocks.

He swallowed, thinking about the way Bond could go cold and still and _dangerous_.

But he hadn’t. Well, he _had_ , in a flash of anger, but it was gone as quickly as it had come. Bond hadn’t even hurt his arm when he’d grabbed it. Bond had _never_ hurt him. And he’d given Q the contact info for the only person on the planet who might matter — the only one who, as far as Bond knew, _might_ still care.

Q swept everything off his temporary work table, sending the rest of the components flying off the table. There was another option. Come clean to Bond, now. Explain. Assure him that he didn’t actually want anything from Bond, that he was just here to help. Perhaps setting up Breckenridge could serve as Bond’s first official act as 007 — provided he didn’t kill Q for the betrayal and cement his status as nothing more than a mercenary.

Q pulled out his mobile and sat down, staring at it, calculating the odds. Would Bond accept the truth, accept Q’s — MI6’s — help, and come back into the fold? Would he vanish and try to carry it off by himself anyway? Would he accept MI6’s offer but reject Q entirely?

Q closed his eyes, frustrated. He had absolutely no idea.

He opened a new text to Alec and typed quickly, suddenly wary of being interrupted.

_Opportunity has presented itself — informing JB of situation. Watch airports and my facial rec programs. If I am unable to make contact in 30 minutes, an address with my location will be texted. — Q_

Q sighed and sent the text. Then he cracked open his laptop and logged into his server, setting it to send a text with the safe house’s address to Alec in half an hour. He logged out with a sense of grim satisfaction. Even if Bond incapacitated him and destroyed his laptop and mobiles, Alec would be able to retrieve him or his body, if it came to that.

It was when he put his mobile back in his pocket that Q realised his hands had started to shake. He didn’t know if it was the adrenaline or the fact that he’d had nothing but coffee and alcohol for nearly twenty four hours, but it irritated him. Confession first, he decided. Food could wait.


	13. Chapter 13

**Wednesday, 13 February 2013**

Q rose from his spot by the couch, took a deep breath, and stepped over the mess. Barefoot, dressed in yesterday’s jeans and T-shirt, hair a wild mess, and completely unarmed, sure, but he could do this.

Q walked quietly into the hallway, stopping to stand in the doorframe of Bond’s room. He was standing in front of the wardrobe. He was pulling suits off the rack, giving each one a shake, and then hanging it in a garment bag that swung from inside the wardrobe door before he reached for the next.

“James?”

Bond’s shoulders went tense, though he deliberately didn’t look back. “You’re still here.”

“I just need to finish my mission, and then I’ll go.”

Bond hung the suit and took a deep breath before allowing his hands to fall to his sides. “Walk away, Q,” he warned quietly, still facing away. “Don’t make me do this to you.”

“It’s been made clear that you’re more valuable than I am, so it’s a sacrifice they’ll willingly make,” Q said a little sadly. “I’m here to bring you back to England — back to M, back to Alec. 007 status is waiting for you.”

Bond’s right hand twitched. He stopped breathing for a moment. When he turned, he left his gun holstered at his back. He stared at Q, gaze flicking to Q’s empty hands before returning to study his face. “MI6,” he challenged.

“I’m not a field agent,” Q said, smiling softly. “None of what I just said was a lie. I haven’t the faintest idea how to handle a gun, other than what I’ve learned from you and YouTube.”

A distant corner of Q’s mind — the part that wasn’t still tense with fear that Bond would lash out at him — thought it fascinating how he could _see_ what Bond was thinking. He watched Bond struggle with what he thought was impossible: that Q was MI6 but not a field agent, someone utterly unprepared to be sent into danger, but somehow the _only_ person who could have got this close and survived. That corner of Q’s mind realised just how bloody brilliant this mad plan was, because Bond would never have let anyone else, with any other combination of characteristics, get close enough to cross the line from threat to someone to be protected. He _knew_ that Bond wouldn’t attack him — short of Q pulling a weapon on him, Bond wouldn’t do more than growl and snap like a guard dog.

“If you _are_ MI6, then you know why I can’t do that,” Bond finally said, his voice still even and controlled.

“You’ve been absolved. This whole mess with Davis and Breckenridge wasn’t anticipated, but it does provide an opportunity to make things even easier. You and I have gathered more than enough evidence to have Breckenridge court martialled, but it isn’t necessary to your return. Your name has been cleared.” Q looked down at his bare feet, and wiggled his toes against the wooden floor. “I’m sure MI5 will be happy to coordinate with you and Alec to finish what we’ve started here.” Alec was going to be _thrilled_ at the opportunity to take Breckenridge down, Q realised. He wondered if MI5 would even get a chance at Breckenridge or if M would decide the matter was better handled in-house.

Bond didn’t answer immediately. He stared at Q, though his eyes were distant. Then, he shook his head and turned back to the garment bag. “No.”

“You don’t have to go with me. It’s probably better that you don’t, given how horribly I deal with planes. You can go with Alec, or by yourself. But England wants you back. Needs you back. It’s time to go home,” Q said gently.

Bond pulled the garment bag’s zip up and shook his head. “I’m not going back with any of you.” He pulled the bag off the door and folded it in half, securing it with straps. He huffed out a sharp breath that wasn’t quite a laugh as he tossed the garment bag on the bed. “You’re a genius — whatever the hell your name is — but you still don’t see it. Davis arrived in-country twelve days ago,” he said as he disappeared into the wardrobe.

“Aidan. Aidan Green. But I rather like Q.” As much as he wanted to follow Bond to the wardrobe, Q held his ground in the doorway. He understood what Bond was implying — either that Breckenridge and Davis had found him because MI6 had, or someone had purposely leaked the information. “What does it matter how they found you? It’s about to be over, with or without your permission. Breckenridge is dirty, and he needs to go away.”

“So I should just go back to MI6 and not give a damn about _how_ he found me. Not worry about whether he used his own access or has a mole in MI6. Or whether that’s _you_.”

Q chuckled, ignoring the nervous clench of his stomach. “Sorry. I’m anti-cyberterrorism, not a spy. I thought that once the main threat was eliminated, it wouldn’t matter. But I see your point. And I’m not the mole. If I were, you’d be dead,” he pointed out logically. “Even if I couldn’t handle the job, I’ve known where you’ve been the whole time. It would have been simple to hand you over.” He sighed and slouched a little against the frame. “But you don’t have to believe me. You know you can trust Alec. Can I tell him to come here? Then you won’t ever have to see me again.”

“Try it and he’ll be coming here to retrieve your body,” Bond warned over the sound of another zipper closing. “Five years ago, he tried to get me to stand trial. What makes you think now is any different?” He emerged from the wardrobe carrying a rectangular duffel bag with shoulder straps. “The only way this ends is if Breckenridge dies. And once that happens, I can _never_ go back again.”

“Alec said he’d die for you,” Q said, watching as Bond hesitated, reaching for the garment bag, as though caught by surprise. “Maybe I’m an idiot, but I believed him,” he added cautiously. _Goddamn spies_ , he thought, realising he’d never bothered to cross-reference anything Alec had said. He checked his mental clock and estimated he had about fifteen minutes before that text was sent from his server. If Alec could be the enemy, he needed to know now. “James?”

With a little shake of his head, as if pushing his thoughts away, Bond picked up the garment bag. “What?”

“Do I need to worry about Alec? I thought he was your friend, but if he could be the mole, I need to know.”

“He’s an optimist, not a traitor.” Bond shouldered the two bags and turned to face Q. “He still has faith in the system.”

“I’m still not letting you go back there to get yourself killed,” Q said firmly. “I think you know I’m not the mole, or I’d be strapped to a chair and bleeding. I may just be a low-level tech, but you know I can help.”

“So MI6 can hunt _you_ as well as me? Why are you so fucking enthusiastic about throwing away your future? Is there someone you want me to kill for you?”

“I told you, everything I said today was true. I care about you. Why is that so hard for you to believe?” Q stood straighter and glared at Bond. “Now that you know who I am, you know I have access to resources. I’m not throwing away anything, though I may very well murder _you_ if you don’t stop being such a stubborn git.”

Bond dropped his luggage and walked over to Q, taking hold of his shoulders. He shoved him up against the wall, hard and sudden, and demanded, “Open your fucking eyes, Q. Keep this up, and I’ll say yes, and I will _destroy_ you. You’re too fucking smart and useful and gorgeous, and I’ll take _everything_ from you, because I’m too damned stubborn to die. I’m trying to save your damned life!”

“Then say yes already so we can stop arguing,” Q said, trying not to smile or wince — both of which were probably a bad idea. He wanted to roll around in the compliments, to grin like a fool at Bond for being kind in an effort to threaten him.

“Why?” Bond’s fingers tightened, digging into Q’s muscles. “Why the fuck won’t you just go back to them?”

“Because I like you better than I like them. And you like me better than they do. And we work together well. And I...” Q met his eyes, hoping Bond understood that there was no manipulation here — and never had been. “I want you to take everything. I want to _give_ you everything. As illogical as it sounds.”

Bond’s right hand relaxed. His fingers inched towards Q’s throat with enough pressure to drag at his T-shirt until he reached bare skin. “What made you so self-destructive?” he asked quietly as his fingertips brushed over Q’s pulse, stopping at his jaw. “Who did this to you?”

“If you’re _finally_ going to kiss me, do it soon. I need to disable an alert,” Q warned quietly, heart beating faster. He didn’t think he could be the one to take that final step — he’d been rejected too many times already. As far as they’d come in this conversation, as much as Bond was all but promising to kill someone for him, a third time would be crushing.

Bond frowned, looking down at Q’s mouth. His thumb swept up onto Q’s cheek, brushing the very corner of his mouth. “What alert?”

“I thought someone might need my location in case you... incapacitated me. It’s set to go off if I don’t stop it in ten minutes.”

Bond’s thumb pressed against Q’s lower lip. “What happens if it goes off?”

“The address of the safe house will get texted to Alec’s mobile.”

His other hand tightened painfully for a moment as he met Q’s eyes. “He’s _here_? In America?”

“In Phoenix. He’s the one who brought me here.”

“Christ,” Bond whispered, closing his eyes for a moment. He frowned, then shook his head and took a breath.

Then he stepped back, pulling Q away from the door and into his arms. The hand on Q’s face slid to the back of his neck, trapping him as Bond kissed him, licking at his mouth until he opened. There was nothing tentative or hesitant or even polite about the kiss; it was hungry, even angry, and Q knew that Bond had dismissed everything — Alec, MI6, Admiral Breckinridge, all of it — from his mind.

Q had a brief moment of panic at being so completely trapped by Bond. He couldn’t have escaped if he’d tried — not that he wanted to. Telling himself again that Bond wouldn’t hurt him, Q let himself melt into the embrace, wrapping his own arms around Bond’s strong body, running his hands up his back. It had been a long time since he’d been in this position, dominated by another man, but he reminded himself that Bond had no interest in hurting him — that he was probably an incredibly affectionate, caring lover.

Bond’s hand slid up to Q’s hair, fingers combing through before he closed his fist. A sharp tug made Q gasp, and Bond ducked his head to bite at Q’s throat until he squirmed. Then Bond licked at the bite, muttering, “Fuck, I’ve wanted to do that since I first saw you,” before he bit again, a half inch lower.

“God,” Q breathed out, feeling himself go compliant under Bond’s hands and teeth. He gripped onto Bond’s shoulders as he started to lose his balance, tipping his upper body back further and his hips forward in the process. “Don’t stop.” _Eight minutes_ , a distant part of his mind reminded him.

Bond barely laughed, hot breath skimming over Q’s neck. He let go of Q’s shoulder — fingertip-sized bruises stung as blood rushed back into his flesh — and wrapped his arm around Q’s body, lifting and turning him. Two steps and Q’s legs hit the bed, and Bond shoved Q backwards.

Q hit the bed with a startled gasp that Bond captured with his mouth, following Q down to trap his body between strong arms and legs, caging him in. Bond was still dressed only in jeans and a bandage. He forced one leg between Q’s and rolled his hips, dragging his very much interested cock, trapped behind layers of denim, against Q’s.

“Oh, _fuck_ James,” Q gasped, nails digging mercilessly into Bond’s skin. “It’s been... I haven’t...” He breathed out in frustration, then rolled his own hips up to match Bond’s movement. He groaned as fire seemed to race along his nerves at the contact. Distantly he felt the presence of his mobile in his back pocket as his body made contact with the bed again. “Wait, the alert. I should cancel it first.”

Bond’s next bite was on the soft underside of Q’s jaw, pressure that was suffocating and electrifying at the same time. He kept moving his hips, shifting and changing his angle until he had Q gasping, and only then did he say, in a low, rough voice, “So fucking cancel it.”

Q laughed, or tried to — it came out as a choked huff he tried to hide in the crook of his arm. Realising that lifting his hips to get the phone out of his pocket was only going to get him more distraction, as incredible as it was, he shifted under Bond, giving himself enough room to roll. He tipped himself on his side, pulled the mobile out of his back pocket, and rolled onto his front so he could focus on the screen without holding it up over his head. Luckily, he had a command prompt program installed, and it was only a matter of moments to log into his server.

Then his hand skittered across the touchscreen as Bond pressed up behind him, body tight against Q’s spine and arse and legs. Bond twisted sideways enough to get his hand in front of Q’s hips. Strong fingers found the button at Q’s waistband and flicked it open. Q entirely forgot what he was doing with his mobile as Bond lowered the zip. Then his fingers curled around Q’s cock and his teeth closed over Q’s nape.

Q shuddered deliciously. “Fuck, James, just give me a second...” He fought to keep his eyes open and on his mobile, and decided it was probably best just to edit the content of the message rather than cancel it altogether. That would not only ease Alec’s worry, but also ensure that if Q messed something up in his somewhat distracted state, the safehouse’s address wouldn’t get accidentally sent anyway. He pulled up his text editor as Bond’s free hand caught him by the hair again, erased the address as Bond pushed his head forward, and saved before he typed anything in, just as Bond’s bite eased into a long, slow lick up the back of his neck.

“Fucking hell, this hair,” Bond muttered before he bit again, this time just hard enough to drag his teeth across Q’s nape, sinking in only at the last inch, right over his spine, just as his other hand skimmed down Q’s cock and back up, maddeningly still over his pants.

Q lost his fight with his body, and his eyes slammed shut at the combined sensations of Bond’s hand in his trousers and his teeth over his vertebrae. He found himself moaning almost embarrassingly loudly, and his fingers stilled on the phone. “Does that mean you want me to cut it?” he asked, opening his eyes again. He quickly typed _‘I’m fine’_ into the editor and saved.

“I have handcuffs,” Bond said, releasing the bite. “I can stop you.”  He pressed even closer and bit again, this time on the muscle between his neck and shoulder. His hand never stopped moving, fingers flexing and curving as far under as the fabric would allow.

Q groaned again, this time at the idea of being cuffed under Bond and at his mercy. Then he decided that was probably a very foolish idea — Bond might decide that would be the way to keep Q here in America. His eyes flew open at the thought that Bond might actually by trying to trick him in some ridiculously sexy way. He left the phone unlocked and set it on the table, within reach. Then he took off his glasses and hooked them over the metal bar of the headboard. Instantly the world disappeared into fuzzy watercolours, and his body helpfully made up for the loss of one sense by increasing the sensitivity of the others. For a moment, Q couldn’t feel anything but Bond’s hand over the fabric of his pants.

“Done?” Bond asked, shifting up an inch, putting Q’s ear in reach. He licked up the shell, tongue teasingly light.

Q tried to nod, gasping when it caused Bond’s tongue to shift over his ear. “Yes,” he said instead. He twisted onto his back and brought his arms around Bond’s waist and shoved his hands into Bond’s waistband, to either side of the holstered gun he was still carrying. He pulled with his arms and pushed with his hips, grinding their bodies together, with Bond’s hand trapped in between. The pressure and friction sent waves of intense pleasure crashing through his body. “God, you’re so incredible,” he tried to say clearly, though he may not have done much more than mumble it.

Bond growled — an actual, low growl from somewhere deep in his chest, primal and full of _want_. “I’m going to bring you right to the damned edge, Q. Then I’m going to stop and fuck you until you can’t breathe, and if you can hold out long enough, I’ll suck you off and make you scream.”

“Oh, god,” Q whispered, arousal and nervousness both flooding his system. He wanted it — he wanted Bond to take him completely, to make him feel incredible, to be given the opportunity to do the same to Bond. But the old fear, the reason he’d quit sleeping with men in the first place, was still there.

He told himself he had no reason to be afraid. Bond was nothing like any of his other male lovers. He was stronger, deadlier, and harsher in many ways, but he was also very careful. Considerate.

Q swallowed and leaned up to kiss Bond, pulling him by his head, fingers skimming through the short hair. He ran his tongue along Bond’s teeth, exploring, before tangling it with Bond’s. He nipped at Bond’s lip when he pulled back, and pushed far enough to pull his own shirt off.

Bond ducked his head, licking at Q’s collarbone before he sucked hard. His hand never stopped working, shifting over Q’s cock, sometimes skimming lightly over the fabric, sometimes pressing hard, moving fast. He nipped and lifted his head to look into Q’s eyes. “Say yes,” he demanded.

As tempted as he was to just ignore Bond, to say yes with body language and kisses, Q held himself still and met Bond’s gaze. He knew immediately that he could say no, and Bond would stop. That by itself gave him enough courage, enough trust, to smile and respond. “Yes,” he said firmly.

Before he’d even finished that slight syllable, Bond licked into his mouth, hand working harder and faster. His hips moved just slightly, hard cock pressing into Q’s hip. Q’s panting had already turned ragged, and Bond’s hand hadn’t even touched bare skin.

Then Bond stopped, hand moving to Q’s jeans to tug at them. “Off,” he demanded, and twisted away with a sharp little hiss as he pulled at the bandaged wound on his side. He rolled out of the bed and headed for the master bathroom.

Q took a second to get his breathing back under control, then carefully and deliberately started tugging at his jeans, careful not to aggravate the burn on his hand. If Bond’s injury was too painful, Q was going to give him time. He lifted his hips and pulled slowly, listening for any more sounds of pain from the bathroom, but all he heard was cabinet doors slamming. Relieved, Q kicked off his jeans, then — after a moment’s consideration — did the same to his pants. He fought the urge to curl under a blanket; as apathetic as he was about his body, he was relatively certain Bond would enjoy the sight.

Bond came back into the bedroom, stopping for a moment to look over Q’s body as though studying it. After one quick visual sweep, all the way to Q’s toes, Bond looked back up more slowly, only moving again when he met Q’s eyes. He threw a small, new bottle of lubricant and an open package of condoms onto the blankets.

He undid his waistband and flies before he reached back and drew his gun. He put it on the nearest bedside table, grip positioned so he could quickly grab it. Then he shoved his jeans and pants down before climbing onto the bed.

“Are you all right?” Q asked quietly, letting his hand trace lightly up Bond’s side. He shifted under Bond, bringing their hips in better alignment, other hand resting at the small of Bond’s back.

“Fine.” Bond twisted to get between Q’s legs and then leaned down, kissing him more slowly now, thoroughly, exploring his mouth in detail. He got his hand between their bodies and touched Q’s bare cock for the first time, a light brush of fingertips that made Q cry out and buck up against his hand. Bond laughed, rough and satisfied, and did it again.

Q closed his eyes and concentrated on the feeling of a man’s hand on his cock — rough calluses, strong fingers, and a familiarity that women just weren’t able to replicate. “Fucking Christ, James,” he whispered, thrusting up again, letting his hands slide up to Bond’s shoulders. He gripped tight, certain he was leaving marks, and not caring. He pulled Bond closer, greedily seeking contact.

With another wicked little laugh, Bond braced up on his knees to force Q to work for the contact. “I want inside you,” he said, brushing his cheek against Q’s. He licked at Q’s ear. “I could fuck you for the rest of the night, so slowly you’d barely know I was moving, but you’d feel every little twitch and thrust. Or do you want it hard and fast, driving you into the mattress?” He caught Q’s earlobe in his teeth and tugged.

There was nothing Q could do to stop the way his heartbeat sped up. His breathing turned shallow. “I...” He took a deep breath, thrusting up into Bond’s hand again. “I don’t know. Start slow,” he suggested, dragging his nails down Bond’s back.

“Slow, it is,” Bond whispered in Q’s ear before he reached for where he’d thrown the lube.

Trying to relax, Q started to turn over, though Bond flattened him with a hand to the centre of his chest. Bond rolled onto his uninjured side, trapping one of Q’s legs under his, and pushed up to bend his knee.

“I want to watch your face,” Bond said, leaning close to brush a kiss over Q’s cheek.

Slightly embarrassed, Q turned his face and nuzzled at Bond’s throat. He nipped his own kiss into Bond’s skin, hoping that he wasn’t being too passive a partner. Giacinta hadn’t been passive, but Q didn’t know if he could match that sort of... enthusiasm.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked.

“I don’t want you doing anything but feeling,” Bond said, inching back just enough to switch the lube to his other hand. He opened it, then growled when he found the safety seal still intact. “Fucking hell. Knife, bedside table drawer. Can you reach it?”

Q tipped his head up and squinted, trying to distinguish the table from the wall. He reached out, but missed on his first effort, and laughed. “Sorry. Can’t see very well without my glasses.” He tried again, feeling along the headboard and the wall until his hand finally hit the table. He fumbled for the drawer, then pulled it open. It took a bit of shuffling and stretching, but he finally felt the cold steel of a handle. He pulled it out, squinting at it as he handed it to Bond. “It seems like I should say something about your using a defensive weapon in sex, but I can’t quite think of anything clever at the moment.”

Bond huffed in irritation and stabbed the knife point into the safety seal. “Next time, ask me to cut you out of your clothes _before_ you’re already naked.” He cut out the seal, flicked it away, and then tossed the blade onto the other bedside table.

“That’s supposed to be sexy?” Q asked, genuinely curious. The idea of a knife that close to skin... he wasn’t sure if he liked the idea or not. “Maybe if I try it on you first,” he suggested.

Instead of snapping at him, Bond laughed as he poured lubricant into his hand. “Should I get dressed again, or would you prefer I move things along?” he asked as he capped the bottle again.

“We should probably wait to play that game when you’re already not so injured, and I’m not a little shaky from too much coffee,” Q said with mock thoughtfulness, hyper aware of every move Bond was making.  “And probably with a dull knife to start.”

“Dull knives hurt. Sharp knives are safer.” Bond  leaned in and licked at Q’s mouth. “Now hush,” he murmured, running a slick finger down the length of Q’s cock.

Q nodded and took deep breaths as he concentrated on what Bond was doing. He turned his head to seek Bond’s mouth again, indulging in another kiss. He wanted slow and sensual, dragging his tongue slowly against Bond’s, moving his hips slowly in time with his mouth’s rhythm.

Instead of going right for Q’s arse, despite his talk of ‘moving things along’, Bond teased his fingers over Q’s cock, slick little touches that turned his slow, careful rhythm into slightly broken twitches. His tongue followed suit, encouraged by Bond’s thorough, toe-curling kisses, until Q was moaning into his mouth.

Only then did Bond curve his hand down over Q’s balls to brush at his entrance. He didn’t push right inside, either; he circled and pressed gently and flicked his fingertip over sensitive skin, kissing Q deeply the whole time.

Q was caught up enough in the kiss that he managed not to flinch. In fact, as momentarily distracted as he was by Bond’s mouth, the only thing he felt was a light tingle of pleasure. Surprised at the pleasant sensitivity, he shifted and pushed just a bit — just enough to chase Bond’s fingertip for a few brief but pleasurable seconds.

Bond grinned into the kiss. “One day, I’m going to tie you down and do this to you for hours,” he murmured as he pressed again, just enough to test the tension of Q’s body.

“Tied down?” Q asked breathlessly. “I’ve never done that either.” The touch was still light, but insistent, and this time when he drew back slightly, Bond’s hand followed. The anticipation made his heart beat quicker, and Q swallowed. “Maybe a little faster would be good.”

“And if I said no?” Bond asked mischievously. “What if I kept touching, just” — he pressed but pulled back before his fingertip could actually breach the ring of muscle — “like” — he did it again — “this?”

Q groaned, tipping his head back, shoving his legs tighter around Bond. “I... don’t know,” he gasped out. “I can’t decide if that’s terribly cruel, or... not.”

Bond moved from Q’s mouth to his throat, nipping slowly and gently as he pushed his fingertip inside. Over Q’s sudden, breathless moan, Bond asked, “Better? Or should I not?” as he eased his fingertip back out.

“Keep going,” Q said quickly. He tugged Bond closer, wrapping his arm around his shoulders again, dragging his hand through his hair. “What should I be doing?” he asked, licking Bond’s ear quickly. He let his hand fall from Bond’s shoulders to his arse and grabbed tightly.

“I told you — just feel,” Bond said a bit more sharply, nuzzling against Q’s cheek to turn his head away. As soon as Q’s throat was exposed, Bond licked up over the pulse point as he pushed his finger back inside. “You don’t have to do anything. Just feel what I’m doing to you,” he said, moving his finger a bit deeper, then pulling back out — only partway, this time, enough for Q to feel the drag against his muscles.

With a nod that brushed his hair over Bond’s face, Q let himself relax against the bed. This time, though, he watched.  It was comforting how in-control and yet lustful Bond’s expression was. Q freed a hand to shove his hair out of his face, then ran it through Bond’s. He thought about saying something, just to break the silence, then arched when Bond eased his finger in even deeper, past the knuckle.

“Good,” Bond whispered, trapping the shell of Q’s ear between his lips. He flicked his tongue over it and then nipped carefully, gently, as he pushed his finger a bit deeper. “Don’t hold back. Show me what you want,” he said, backing his finger out before he slid it back inside, this time with different pressure, finding new nerves to spark to life.

Q decided to hell with being a passive partner — he was going to try encouragement. Maybe he could get Bond to move faster — or, even better, show him _intense_. So he grabbed Bond’s shoulders and rolled his hips, gasping a little at the drag of Bond’s finger inside him. “That’s good,” he said before doing it again.

Bond’s laugh was rougher, less controlled. “Fuck,” he murmured, and this time, when Q pushed up, Bond pushed in, and Q felt the rest of Bond’s hand press against his tailbone. “Christ, Q. So fucking hot.”

Q couldn’t do much more than hum in response, surprised at the sensation of his body actually relaxing under Bond’s hand. He let his fingernails dig into Bond’s shoulders, and he leaned up just enough to bite at Bond’s lip. “More,” he demanded quietly, holding Bond’s gaze.

“Tell me if it’s too much,” Bond said, pulling almost all the way out. He pushed a second finger in — or he _tried_ to, but Q’s body tensed. Immediately, Bond slid just one back in, whispering, “Shh. Easy. Feel it, Q.”

“Sorry,” Q muttered, laying back again and trying to relax again. He closed his eyes and rolled his hips, taking deep breaths. “Can’t blame me for being impatient for you,” he said with a tense chuckle. He smiled and pulled Bond into another kiss, this one more like the slower, sensual exploration that he’d started with. Q found his rhythm again, groaning at the sparks of pleasure, and the next time Bond tried, his second finger slid in just as easily as the first had, with barely any burn or ache at all.

Still, Bond didn’t rush. He curled his fingers and moved them in and out and explored, all the while kissing Q’s mouth and throat and ear. When Q’s breathing stuttered and faltered again, Bond encouraged, “That’s it, Q. Let go.” When he bucked his hips up at a sudden, sharp flare of pleasure, Bond laughed and did it again.

“What...” Q started before he cut himself off. In uni, like any good geek, he’d done a lot of research when he’d started his first relationship, and he’d read about this. But he’d never experienced it. “Fuck, do that again.”

Bond’s laugh was wicked. “With my fingers” — another gentle slide made Q gasp — “or my cock?”

“Oh, god, James.” He ran his hands up and down Bond’s back fingers scratching demandingly. “Yes. Let’s do that.”

When Bond pulled his fingers out, Q whined in complaint, making Bond laugh again, though not mockingly. He sounded... happy. Delighted, even. Q had never imagined him relaxing enough to laugh that way, and he grinned at the knowledge that _he did that_.

Then Bond rolled on top of him and pushed his knees back towards his chest, saying, “You can rest your legs on my shoulders, if you want.” He knelt back between Q’s legs and ripped open one of the condoms.

More often than not, Q didn’t care one way or the other about his body. He tended to view it as necessary for existence, but too full of annoying needs, urges, and drawbacks to really be held with any esteem. But now, as he was able to fold himself nearly in half to get his legs in an optimum position, ready for Bond to make him feel nothing but exquisite pleasure, he felt a giddy appreciation for it. He didn’t feel nervous any more, and he watched Bond settle into place with anticipation.

There was no pain. There was tension, yes, but when Bond whispered for him to push down and he did, Bond’s cock breached the muscle almost with ease. It was nothing like Q remembered from uni — no hard thrusting and demands that he ‘fucking relax already’. This was slow and hot and powerful but also incredibly careful. Bond could have snapped him in half with ease, but all that strength was tightly restrained. He really had no interest in hurting Q at all.

“God, you’re amazing,” Q said, though he was certain he’d said it earlier. He looked up in wonder at Bond, letting how impressed and grateful he was show through his lust. He pulled Bond down and kissed him — about the only movement he was presently capable of. Somewhat to his surprise, his own cock twitched hard when Bond kissed back.

Then, braced up on his hands, Bond drew his hips back and then rolled his spine, pushing slowly inside. He licked at Q’s mouth and did it again, and Q could feel him changing the angle with each searching thrust. Bond leaned his weight on his left hand and reached down with the right, pulling Q’s hips up just a bit, and when he thrust again, Q saw sparks.

“Ah, James!” Q wanted desperately to thrust up against him, to chase the sparks himself, but he was completely pinned down by Bond, held tightly by the stronger body. To his shock, he realised he wasn’t nervous at all anymore — he was completely at ease where he was, reliant on Bond for his pleasure. As unaware as he had been that there was any tension left in his body, he felt it evaporate under Bond’s careful attention.

Bond’s next thrust was harder and utterly without any pain. Q felt surrounded and trapped and wanted and _safe_. Bond growled again, this time murmuring, “Oh, fuck, Q.”

The words pierced through Q’s increasingly foggy consciousness, sending a thrill through his body and directly to his cock. _This_ was what he’d wanted — to know that _he_ was bringing Bond this sort of pleasure. He groaned and dug his hands into Bond’s hips, pulling as hard as he was able. “God, yes, come on James,” he gasped out. “That’s perfect.”

Bond’s eyes met his, and god, his eyes were almost black, barely ringed with blue. “Harder?” he grated out, straining to keep his thrusts slow and gentle and deep.

“God yes,” Q said without hesitation. He reached his hands behind him to brace himself against the wall, breathing deeply into the stretch that allowed his legs to fold even more, allowing Bond to settle deeper.

“Fuck.” Bond braced his weight on his left hand and slid his right along Q’s arm to his wrist, pinning his hand to the bed as he started to move. His thrusts were still careful at first, and he stared at Q with such intensity that Q had to close his eyes and hide just so he could breathe. Then, as Bond’s self-control cracked, he fucked hard into Q, breath coming in sharp little pants.

Q opened his eyes again, watching with delighted fascination. They hadn’t even finished, and Q couldn’t wait to do it again, watching Bond fall apart like this. He wondered what it would be like to be on top, to force Bond to rely on Q’s pacing for his pleasure.

Then Bond’s cock dragged at the perfect angle inside him again, and he groaned and arched, all plans for the future vanishing in the present moment. “God, please, yes,” he moaned, using his leverage against the wall.

Bond groaned and fucked into him even harder, until the bed rocked against the wall. Bond’s hand went tight around Q’s wrist, and he inhaled sharply, muscles going tense. “Oh, fuck. Fuck, Q,” he groaned, thrusting hard and deep as he threw his head back.

The shift in position was enough to let Q’s cock just brush against Bond’s abdomen. The little shocks of pleasure combined with Bond’s words, and Q was shocked to find himself approaching orgasm. “James,” he tried to warn, his voice coming out low and broken. “I’m... Please...”

Bond let go of Q’s wrist to reach down, fingers circling Q’s cock. “Come for me,” he demanded roughly as he started to move his hand. “I want to feel it.”

Q lost his breath entirely for a long moment as the sparks started to take over. He pressed against the wall again, not caring that his thrusting was ridiculously inefficient. He could feel the fire gather in the base of his spine, and he chased it relentlessly, distantly aware that he was chanting James’ name over and over again. Then everything disappeared in an incredibly intense orgasm, causing his fingers to dig brutally into Bond’s neck and his body to clench around him. He had just a moment to watch Bond’s eyes go wide before his own slammed shut, shuddering and trembling under Bond as the waves of ecstasy rolled over him.

Bond groaned, low and broken, and thrust only a few more times before he went still, cock buried deep. Q could actually _feel_ the subtle pulsing against his muscles, the way Bond’s cock twitched in a fast, steady rhythm that slowed only after long seconds had passed. Braced up over Q, Bond panted and dragged in deep breaths, eyes closed.

“Fucking god,” he muttered, opening his eyes with visible effort.

Q slipped his legs down over Bond’s arms and pulled him down. As hot and sticky as they were, Q wasn’t ready to let Bond go just yet. He needed a moment to let his heart slow down, to wait for his trembling to stop. He couldn’t say anything yet — he was still trying to catch his breath — but he hoped the sentiment was obvious.

Bond seemed in no hurry to move, though he refused to lie with his weight on top of Q. “God, Q.” He leaned down on an elbow, pressing his chest gently to Q’s, and kissed him. “Fucking gorgeous.”

“That was...” Q struggled to find a word adequate to describe what had just happened. Amazing. Incredible. Fantastic. None of them seemed to cover it. “Thank you,” he finally said instead.

Bond’s laugh was a little ragged, and a hint of tension rippled through his shoulders as he winced. He drew out of Q’s body slowly and backed up enough to roll onto his back with a sharp exhale. He pulled off the condom, dropped it on the bedside table, and wiped his hand on the duvet. “Fuck. You’re fucking distracting,” he said, reaching with his other hand to just touch his fingertips to Q’s.

Q rolled onto his side, his smile disappearing when he saw spots of blood on the bandage. “Oh god, I’m sorry.” He cast a glance at the bathroom, then sat up. “What kind of painkiller do you want? I’ll get a clean bandage, too.”

“It’s fine,” Bond said, avoiding the burn as he caught Q’s wrist instead of his hand. “Let me just catch my breath.”

Q thought about arguing, but decided he’d had enough of that for one day. He eased back down onto his side, curling close without actually touching anything other than Bond’s hand. There were too many bruises, too many injuries.

Not that Bond seemed to care. He let go of Q’s hand to get his arm under his shoulders, and pulled him close. “Christ, I should go get you food,” Bond muttered, rubbing his thumb over Q’s shoulder. “MI6 has a medical department, doesn’t it? Why the hell haven’t they locked you up to feed you?”

“My body mass index is well within the normal range,” Q almost-lied. He was on the cusp of underweight for his height, but no one seemed bothered by it. “Not all of us have the disposition to be strong like you. I sit at a desk all day. You should be glad I’m not overweight.”

Bond laughed. “Then I’d just drag you out jogging with me. Next time, you’re on top.”

Q let out a sharp exhale, his stomach clenching in anticipatory delight. “God yes,” he agreed. “Did you actually read my thoughts?” he said with a lopsided grin. “I’ve never ridden anyone before. It will be amazing.”

Bond looked at him, eyes going a bit wide. “Never?” he asked, his voice taking on a heated undertone despite what they’d just done.

“I told you — selfish gits in uni. That’s about all the experience I’ve got.” Q grinned as he pulled a little closer, careful to avoid aggravating any injuries. “You’re going to have to widen my perspective a bit.”

“Anything you can think of. There’s a very short list of things I won’t do. The rest is your choice,” Bond said with another little laugh. “As long as it starts with a shower. I’m not getting a bloody reservation today — not for one, much less two, and I only fly first class.”

The warm, happy glow abruptly vanished, and Q’s hand tightened on Bond’s. Someday, when things between them weren’t so tentative, he’d chastise Bond for bringing thoughts of a plane to their bed. But it wasn’t time for that yet. He cleared his throat. “Right.” He rolled onto his back. “I’ll get the shower started.”

Bond pulled Q back against him. “Christ, why are you so anxious to get away from me?” he asked teasingly before he went tense and let go. “Fuck. Sorry.”

“You should be, bringing up a thirteen-hour plane ride right after such fucking _amazing_ sex,” Q said with a huff. At Bond’s baffled look, Q raised an eyebrow before he settled back down on Bond’s shoulder. “You couldn’t have let the afterglow last for just a little bit longer? Maybe you need to make it up to me.”

Bond sighed and tugged Q close. He lifted his head enough to kiss his hair, muttering, “That was my way of saying we’re _not_ going anywhere tonight, genius.” Then his arm tightened. “Or is Alec coming to get you?”

“No. He doesn’t know where I am, remember? I cancelled the alert.” Against all odds, Q felt his eyelids grow a little heavy — he wondered if it were the activity, the stress, or the fact that he hadn’t eaten in a while. Either way, he curled closer to Bond for body heat and let his eyes fall shut. “If I fall asleep, you don’t have to stay. I won’t wake up if you move.”

Bond huffed. “And if I stay, I can _keep_ you in bed for more than two bloody hours. Just... tell me one thing, before you pass out.”

“What?”

“Is Alec all right?” Bond asked, his voice taking on that controlled, neutral tone that had become all too familiar.

Q opened his eyes and tipped his head to look up at Bond. “I think so. He smiles and laughs and does his job well.” Q paused, wondering what the mark of a mentally stable field operative was. “And he let me punch him in the face once without killing me for it.”

Some of the tension left Bond’s posture. “He would’ve let you do it twice,” he said with a little laugh. “Think you can get under the blanket, or do I need to lift you up? Fuck — Stay here. I’ll get a towel. Go to sleep.”

Q let go, chuckling as Bond untangled himself from Q’s long limbs. “God, do you realise that if I sleep for even an hour, and I will have had more rest in the past twenty-four hours than I normally get in a week?” Q shook his head. “I’m going to be wired. This doesn’t bode well for a plane ride. Do you know anyone who can put me into a medically-induced coma?”

“We’ll be in first class. Once the lights go out, I’ll be curled up behind you, playing with your body for hours. You’ll barely notice the flight.” Bond got out of bed and gave Q an almost innocent smile. “I might even fuck you, if you can be very quiet.”

Q stared at Bond, trying to figure out if he was joking or not. “Really?”

Bond leaned over, all his weight on his right arm, and put his lips close to Q’s ear. “Under the blankets, in the dark... I’ll finger you open slowly, until you’re whimpering into your pillow. Then I’ll curl up behind you, ease inside, and barely even move. Hold you in my arms to keep you close and still, my hand on your cock. Just little thrusts into your body...”

Q shivered hard at the thought, wrapping his hand around Bond’s wrist. “Oh god, yes please. Though in that case, no lorazepam. It’s not good for the libido. I’ll do Xanax instead. And whisky.”

“Christ, you sound as fucked up as me,” Bond said with a wry laugh. He kissed Q’s temple and said, “Go to sleep. I’ll be right back with a towel.”

Q closed his eyes with a smile. He had enough time to be grateful that at least their jagged edges matched well enough before he fell back asleep.


	14. Chapter 14

**Saturday, 16 February 2013**

Q stared out the window of the Land Cruiser as it bounced and jolted northwards. After two weeks in Arizona, it felt strange all over again to be driving on the proper side of the road. Between the aftermath of the plane ride, the alcohol and chemical tranquilisers still in his bloodstream, the artificial high of too much caffeine at the airport, and the choking fear that they were on British soil with the intent of luring in and killing a British military officer, Q’s stomach was twisted up with nausea. He hoped like hell Bond didn’t make him try and eat anything for a while — there was no way that was going to end well.

Despite the chill in the air, Q rolled down the window and let his head hang out a little, grateful for the effect of the rain on his skin. He still couldn’t believe he was doing this. Not that he was reluctant or regretful, but that his life at MI6 and his cover for Bond had merged together so seamlessly to bring him to the very strange act of sitting in a car with a man who was supposed to be nothing more than a mark. A target. Q would have snorted at himself if he had the energy for it.

He wondered if things would continue to feel so surreal after the chemicals, alcohol, and adrenaline wore off.

They were going in blind and alone. Stubbornly, Bond had refused to allow Alec to help. He’d even refused to talk to Alec, saying he didn’t want to compromise Alec’s ability to honestly say he had no idea of Bond’s plans. Q would have actually been jealous of the deep affection between the two men — affection they were both too fucking stubborn to show — if not for how Bond lavished attention on Q. Bond and Alec were like brothers tragically separated, and Bond was decidedly _not_ brotherly in his affections for Q.

No guns. No comms except for two burner phones from the States with prepaid GSM cards purchased at the airport. False identification provided by one of Bond’s contacts in Arizona, even though Q had a perfectly good false passport at his hotel, which Bond hadn’t let him retrieve. And Bond was acting as if this was _normal_ for him, this lack of support, backup, and safety.

“You with me?” Bond asked once they were well away from London, which they’d skirted as best they could to avoid the blanket of CCTV and traffic cameras everywhere.

“No,” Q muttered miserably. He pulled himself back in from the window and slid to the right edge of his seat. He buried his face against Bond’s shoulder. “How long before I have to be functional?”

Bond petted his hair. “I’m sorry, but I need you now, if you can get your laptop or mobile online. We’ll be” — he hesitated — “home in a few more hours. I need Breckenridge to start moving now.”

Q nodded but didn’t move just yet. It was time for the taunt, to lay out the trap they’d planned before they left America. There was no going back once Q sent the e-mail from Davis’ account. It explained to Breckenridge, in the same terse, perpetually-annoyed language as in Davis’ other emails, that Bond had evidence of some kind — something Davis couldn’t identify — and that he was going home to collect it, to use it to clear his name.

As soon as Q hit ‘send’, Breckenridge would come running. And every minute Q didn’t tell anyone else was a minute longer that backup would take to arrive, if they decided they needed it.

Q groaned and pushed himself off Bond. He pulled out his phone and logged into Davis’ web client. He found the draft email and sent it before he could talk himself out of it. He stuffed the mobile back in his pocket and leaned against Bond. “Done.”

“When we get up there, I’m leaving you at a hotel. There’s one about twenty kilometres from the lodge,” Bond told him.

“I don’t want to spend two hours arguing,” Q said quietly into Bond’s shoulder. “I’m going to help.”

“I’m not letting you kill someone. I’m planning a murder, not a garden party. Do you even know how to fire a shotgun?”

“Theoretically, yes. I’ve shot enough weapons with you now that I think I can handle it. It’s much less complicated than that rifle of yours.” He suspected they probably kicked as much, but some deep tissue bruising would be worth keeping James alive.

“Three rounds out of an AR-15 and a couple dozen out of a Glock,” Bond muttered. “If I had handcuffs, I’d bring you to a hotel and leave you handcuffed to the bathroom sink. Fine. If things go badly, you _run_. I’ll show you the priest’s hole. You go down there, you close the door from inside, and you get the hell away. Argue with me and I’ll pull over and leave you on the side of the road right now. Understand?”

“I already said I don’t want to argue,” Q pointed out. “Not really up for it anyway.” He paused. “Priest’s hole? That sounds vaguely dirty. No, not even vaguely.”

Bond’s jaw tightened. “It is. It’s a tunnel under the property, dug through the dirt and rock. It leads to the chapel.” He glanced at Q and added, “Counting you, only four living people know about it.”

Q squeezed Bond’s arm reassuringly. “Did you used to play there a lot when you were a boy? Pretending to —” Apprehensively, he cut himself off, feeling Bond go tense.

Bond didn’t say anything. Over a mile went by, a mile of sharp-edged silence and Bond staring unwaveringly at the road ahead, a mile of such perfectly regulated breathing that Q could have set his watch by the seconds between each inhale and exhale. Holding onto Bond as he was, he felt Bond’s heart accelerate sharply and then, slowly, ease back to his normal resting rate.

Only then did Bond answer, “I spent two days down there after my parents died.”

“I’m sorry,” Q said quietly. He closed his eyes against the gloom and rain, against Bond’s all-too-carefully blank face. He wondered what kind of early childhood Bond must have had, living in a place that had something like a priest hole, in a big manor in the Scottish countryside. Maybe someday Bond would tell him.

“They died in France, climbing in the _Aiguilles Rouges_ , at the edge of the Alps.”

“They were climbers?” Q asked. “Did you go too, sometimes?”

Bond’s shoulders twitched — the beginnings of a shrug. “They died when I was eleven. A few years later, I studied climbing in Austria.”

Q nodded with understanding. Of course Bond would have conquered something that threatened to conquer him. He wasn’t the sort who seemed to care for being afraid of anything. Q wished he had the same confrontational nature. “What were they like, your parents?”

“Distant.” Another aborted shrug. “They seemed to love each other.”

 _And you?_ Q wanted to ask. He couldn’t imagine that a child would spend two days in the dark, underground, because of the death of people he wasn’t attached to. Of course, Q knew very well that you could desperately love people, especially parents, who didn’t give a damn in return. It did explain a little more about Bond, though. Q wondered what else had died that day. “I’m sorry,” he said again, not knowing what else to say.

This time, the shrug happened. “The house is useful. My father’s armoury is still there. Remote and well-stocked, at least with weapons. Probably every window is broken out and the place is full of rats, but at least we’ll have guns. And it’s laid out like a bloody trap — all the old houses of that style are. Corridors with right-angles, rooms in the middle with no windows, all that.”

“Your father had an armoury?” Q asked with surprise. “What did he do for living?”

“He worked for Vickers Defence Systems. The armoury was for hunting. There’s not much else to do in the arse end of Scotland but hunt or walk.”

“Did he design weapons?”

“He was a sales manager. He was never even in the military.”

Q chuckled quietly. “I assume you know all about Universal Exports. Every field agent gets an identity, with Universal Exports listed as their place of employment. Most get titles in something that has to do with sales. It makes me instantly suspicious, to hear of someone ‘in sales’ at a company — especially one like Vickers,” he explained.

Bond huffed. “They weren’t in intelligence. I investigated —” He shook his head. “They weren’t anyone important. My father made a good wage, but most of that went to our travel, for his job. I’d been to every country in Europe and half the damned Middle East and North Africa before they died. I wasn’t even born in Scotland.”

“They were important to you,” Q said quietly. “But you don’t like it there anymore?”

“I can’t stand it. Draughty ruin, falling apart, in the middle of bloody nowhere,” he said, avoiding the subject of his parents. “London —” He shook his head. “I like cities.”

“Me, too,” Q said, squeezing Bond just a little tighter. He wanted to reassure Bond that he could have a home there again — despite what he thought, and whether he went back to MI6 or not, Q was certain the court martial would go away, as would his presence on any watch lists. London was his home, and Q knew it. He’d find some way to make sure Bond got to have it back.

 

~~~

 

 _Home_ , Bond thought grimly as he turned the Land Cruiser at the old, crumbling gates.

Skyfall Lodge was a miserable, desolate place, a towering heap of mud-brown brick and sharp-peaked roofs. Too few windows pierced the walls, shrouding the building in perpetual darkness, and its proportions were built for giants, dwarfing the residents with uncomfortably narrow rooms with awkwardly high ceilings. It sat at the bottom of a basin, and for half the year, it was surrounded by inch-deep lakes of mud with deeper rabbit holes and pits waiting to trap an unwary hiker’s ankle. The lake on the property was almost redundant, there was so damn much moisture. It certainly didn’t serve as drainage to keep the surrounding land dry.

The Land Cruiser left deep, muddy gouges on the sloped track from the gatepost down to the house. Q was looking around with a mixture of fascination and horror; a city boy like him had probably never even imagined people surviving in such a remote locale. Bond had to agree.

Bond parked right up by the front entrance — it wasn’t as if there were a proper driveway — and turned off the engine. He got out, leaving his luggage in the Land Cruiser, and went to the doors. He knelt down and felt along the wall for the loose brick where they’d always kept a spare key; Bond’s key was long since gone.

He should have been concerned with showing an outsider the location, but Q didn’t feel... he _wasn’t_ an outsider. And that was the damndest thing of all, because he’d known Q for a week, and almost all of that time had been a lie. Maybe Bond was just getting old or his brain had been scrambled by the phenomenal sex. Or maybe he was just too damned tired of not being _home_ — not Skyfall but England.

He unlocked the heavy double doors and pushed them open but hung back. The first breath of air that rushed out was stale, though not as musty or thick as it could have been. Apparently nothing had recently died in the chimneys, which was a nice change.

 _Five years_ , Bond thought as he finally led the way into the high, narrow foyer. He reached to the side and flipped the light switch. To his surprise, the lights actually came on — or half of them did, at any rate, since many of the bulbs had burned out. He glanced up at the light fixture of antlers with a disgusted huff. He’d always hated that thing. Maybe he could find a ladder and reinstall it prongs-down, and then drop it on that fucker Breckenridge when he came through the front door.

The thought caused an icy, amused smile to cross his face.

“Well,” said Q, looking around before he looked up at the antlers. “I can see why you didn’t miss it. I imagine that even with every light and window in perfect shape, it still would have felt rather cold.” Then he turned his attention to the door and windows again. “I wonder what I can rig up,” he said more quietly, running a hand along the door jamb, expression calculating.

“With luck, we won’t have to worry about too many traps,” Bond said grimly, heading deeper into the house. He pointed out the various rooms, populated now by dust and the ghostly shapes of draped furniture, until they reached the armoury. This room had a substantial interior door, also unlocked with the front door key, and the exterior windows were all too narrow for anyone but a child — or Q — to get through. He led Q inside and flipped the light on.

Q let out a soft breath as he looked at the glass-fronted cases lining three of the walls. There were few rifles; most of the weapons were shotguns of virtually every type. The collection was impressive, and Bond felt his apprehension ease. It wasn’t just the sight of the weapons and the knowledge that he’d be able to kill Breckenridge; it was the comfort of the room. This, more than any other place in the house, had been the one room where he’d felt most comfortable.

He went to one of the cases near the back. The door was easy to pull open despite the little lock; a sharp tug up and a twist against the warped old frame, and the latch popped free. He swung the door open and took out one of the shotguns, offering it to Q.

Q took the shotgun, looking not at Bond but at the weapon. He slid his hands along the barrel and pump, then around the trigger, safety, and action bar. “Is the ammunition here still safe to use?” he asked, looking up.

“Safer than hitting him with the stock, though that can take it. This is a Remington 870 20-gauge. It was my first gun. You won’t even feel the recoil,” Bond said, guiding Q’s hands to hold it properly. His fingers were almost too long for the forward grip, but it snugged comfortably into his shoulder “Rest it in your left hand. Don’t try to create tension by pulling back. And for god’s sake, don’t just randomly pump it to make intimidating noises, or you’ll cock the whole thing up. This isn’t a bloody movie,” he said, remembering having received much the same lecture once.

Q rolled his eyes at Bond. “Do have a little faith,” he said, lowering the weapon. “I’m not an idiot.” He knelt in front of the case and tugged the bottom drawer free, pulling out boxes of ammunition. He shoved aside the bird shot in favour of the slugs. The boxes were crumbling in the humidity, but Q handled them carefully enough that they didn’t fall apart.

Satisfied that Q wouldn’t hurt himself, Bond went to another cabinet, where he’d stored away his father’s rifle. It was an Anderson Wheeler express double rifle. The rounds were massive, almost four inches long, designed to stop a charging elephant. The thought of using them on Breckenridge was grimly satisfying.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to set anything up in doorways or halls?” Q asked quietly, loading the rifle. “I brought some interesting things with me. There are enough guns, enough gunpowder, in this room to wreak some fairly impressive havoc. I could even improvise. That antler sculpture out there...” Q gave a quiet snicker before casting a guilty look at Bond. “Sorry. If you have memories, I probably shouldn’t...”

Bond shook his head. “I’ll tear the bloody house down to finish off that bastard,” he admitted. He had no particular attachment to the building. He owned the property out of apathy, not any desire to return here. As much as a part of him — a small part — loved the wilds of Scotland, this particular structure was uncomfortable, even unsafe in places; he and Q wouldn’t be trusting the upper storeys.

He filled his pockets with ammunition and surveyed the armoury, thinking. He had no access to handguns, and a backup rifle was pointless; this rifle wouldn’t misfire. But there were knives, he remembered, and he went to sort through cupboards to try and find them.

“You have no hand-to-hand training, right?” he asked, sorting through the dusty boxes and shelves.

“No. But I brought my batons, just for good measure.” Q sat on the floor and started pulling open every ammunition drawer he could reach. He looked thoughtful for a moment, then pulled his messenger bag to his side and started digging. “I can set guns at doors set to go off at trip wires. I don’t have much in the way of possibilities for explosives, though if I had enough time...” He shook his head started to shove the boxes of bird shot into the bag. “Well, there is a reason the classics are classics. They’re effective.”

Bond glanced back, thinking of everything he could teach Q, if they had more time. Things that were brutal and bloody but so very effective. Philosophies of how to set traps — how a non-lethal trap could be more debilitating to an enemy unit’s morale and speed of travel, how to think like the enemy to determine points of entry into a fortified position... Was Q treating this like a game? An intellectual challenge? Or was he ready for the fact that one man, maybe more, would enter this house, and Bond would do everything in his power to ensure that that man never left?

Bond wasn’t accustomed to feeling _guilt_ , and the sharp, sudden pain of it was far worse than the strain their recent travel had inflicted on his wounded side.

He turned away, disturbed by the impulse to go pull Q into his arms and find some way — any way — to get him to safety, not just for his protection but for his innocence. Because he knew Breckenridge wouldn’t come alone, even if he wouldn’t come with an entire force, for fear of them seeing whatever ‘evidence’ Bond might have. Because a bigger part of him knew Q could be useful, and that two shooters were more effective than one. And because, damn him, Q claimed he wanted to be here, and if Bond threw him out and Q resented the attempt at protection, he might well leave.

Q stood, straining at the weight in his bag. “I’ve never actually set a tripwire before. This should be interesting.” He turned to the gun cases and started pulling out guns, stopping to check the gauges before gently pulling them into a pile. Once he had eight or nine of them, he stacked them in his arms like firewood and headed for the door. “I’ll start with windows and doors to the outside. I can’t carry that much, so it will take me a few trips. Don’t shoot me.” He gave Bond a lopsided grin.

 _Get out_ , Bond wanted to say. But instead he nodded and said, “Start in the kitchen, to the back. I’ll show you the escape route, as soon as I’ve found the knives.”

 

~~~

 

Q tried not to let his hands shake as he stared at the pile of shotguns in front of him. He had absolutely _no fucking idea_ what he was doing. Not with setting up the guns, of course — that was a fairly easy task to accomplish. But he was about to set traps meant _to kill people_.

With a deep breath, Q pulled the mouldy kitchen chair over, sat down, and picked up the first gun. He told himself to focus on the challenge of engineering, not the result, but it didn’t help. For as much as he’d managed to hide his feelings from Bond, he really had no interest in killing anyone. Even in his work at MI6, he had landed one of the positions that didn’t actually result in casualties — not directly, at least.

 _But this is for Bond_ , Q reminded himself. There was an uncomfortable realisation in there somewhere about his own impending danger, but that had been on his mind enough lately that it wasn’t a new feeling. It was easy to let nervousness about his own mortality get overwhelmed by the imagery of what would happen to the targets of his traps, or his direct shooting if it came to that. Shotguns were not clean and efficient tools for killing a human. They’d rip huge chunks of flesh and bone from their victims...

 _Q’s victims_.

The sound of the duct tape being ripped from the roll as he wound it around the gun and the table was comforting in its familiarity. It wasn’t his fault there were men coming to kill them, Q reminded himself. They were in Bond’s childhood home — horrifically desolate as it was — and it took effort and determination for people to hunt them here. Bond and Q were the ones being chased, not the other way around.

With vicious determination, Q tried to stop thinking about it. He retrieved one of the spools of wire from where he’d stuck it in his coat pocket, and pulled a box of eye screws from his bag. Q wasn’t a mercenary. Bond didn’t need to be one anymore, either. Just this one last task, one last solitary effort, and they could find a new balance. Go home to London. Do things that normal people did, like go to restaurants together or concerts or dancing or cultural events...

Q sniggered to himself as he knelt in the doorway, brushing his hand against the soft wood that would take the screw easily. James Bond at a cultural event — dressed in a dinner suit and listening to a symphony with other polite folk. The idea seemed almost laughable.

After he fixed the shotgun in place, but before he could route the tripwire forwards, Bond came up to him and touched his shoulder. “Let me show you your way out,” he said, tugging Q to his feet. His voice had gone even harder and colder than before, a trend Q had noticed as the time of their possible conflict drew nearer. Though it was more than ten hours from London to Skyfall by car, there was a good chance that Admiral Breckenridge would take some faster means of transport, possibly even an RAF helicopter.

His stomach twisted in apprehension, but he followed where Bond was leading. Q didn’t particularly want to _see_ the priest hole, let alone follow it through to the chapel, but the idea of arguing with Bond while he was in this dark place seemed incredibly unwise. There was no point in telling Bond he wouldn’t leave without him — besides, if he had to drag Bond out, it would be handy to know the most secure exit strategy.

Of course, the thought of Q dragging Bond _anywhere_ against his will was just absurd.

Bond brought him to what looked like dark, battered wainscoting. He took Q’s hand and guided his fingers over the decorative rail, and Q felt a little join between two pieces of wood, one that was slightly notched. “Pull to the left,” Bond said, pushing Q’s fingers against the rail. He felt the wood grind, followed by a click, and the wainscoting pulled away on concealed hinges.

Beyond was a hole in the wall. There were no stairs, no ladder — only a sharp, dirt-floored slope that descended into the dark earth. Bond reached in and tugged on a string, illuminating a tiny light bulb hanging from its own power cord. The ceiling was stone, and the cord was strung through bent nails.

“The door’s lightproof, but don’t take chances. Turn off the lights. Feel your way through.” He shook his head as he turned off the light, muttering, “Buggering hell. I should have brought torches.”

Q had no particular fear of confined spaces or the dark, but staring into that blackness was deeply unnerving. He cleared his throat and dug around in his bag for the two thin Maglite torches he’d brought with him for no other reason than because thinking of things that might be useful to stuff into his bag had kept him busy while Bond bought plane tickets. He silently offered the red one to Bond.

With a little laugh, Bond took the torch and quietly said, “So you do know what you’re doing after all.” Q might have taken offence, except for the first time in two hours, his voice carried a hint of affectionate teasing. He pushed the wainscoting closed and then made Q open it a few times on his own, until he could find it quickly and unerringly every time.

“Remember. If I tell you to run, you _run_. And bring a weapon with you.” Bond squeezed Q’s shoulder. “I’m going to go out to the grounds. Don’t arm any exterior traps until I’m back inside.”

“I’ll get them ready but won’t set the trip wires. So don’t panic if you come back in, only to be faced with the end of a shotgun,” Q said with a little laugh. “I’ll save the front door for last.”

 

~~~

 

Afterwards, Q’s memory was in fragments. Muzzle flash and blowback fixed snapshots in his mind’s eye. His ears rang with the thunder of Bond’s gun, a monster meant to kill lorries or dinosaurs.

Admiral Breckenridge hadn’t come alone.

The death might have horrified Q, if not for the remorse — the _humanity_ — he saw in Bond’s eyes, right before the glacial chill returned. Bond had no desire to kill soldiers who were following orders, but he wasn’t going to surrender. He wouldn’t be taken alive, and he would kill without hesitation so he could draw one more breath, and Q _knew_ that even if he were dying, that last breath would be spent telling Q to run.

Breckenridge brought eight soldiers in two vehicles. They did their best to surround the house, while Breckenridge stood back. They had radios, and their coordinated entry was a series of loud bangs — portable battering rams slamming into the doors, followed by the discharge of shotguns wired to the door handles.

Thus it was Q, not Bond, who shed the first blood at Skyfall.

Then there was no time to think about it, thank god, because their entry was fast and angry, though they’d learned caution. They discovered some tripwires; others they triggered, and Q flinched at every explosive report.

He was in the kitchen, much as it galled him to hide away. But Bond needed to know where he was, or the shadow of Q’s movement might cause Bond to shoot — or to hesitate and _not_ shoot one of the enemies for fear of hitting Q. So he listened and peered down hallways to see bright flame obscured by clouds of thick gun smoke until he could taste the chemical residue on his tongue. Thank god it obscured any smell of blood.

There were _so many shots_.

Once, the sound of splintering wood made Q spin to see a new hole in the wall just inches from where he’d been standing. Five minutes later, it occurred to him that he’d almost died, helpless and alone, the victim of a stray round.

But by then, it was already over.

Five minutes later, Q was sitting on the kitchen floor, ready to raise the shotgun. He was no longer alone, though he had no memory of how the soldier had ended up dead on the floor with him, across the room. Q stared at the body, looking at the way blood was pooling out of black clothing that didn’t seem quite standard.

 _Mercenary_ , Q thought, thinking that Bond would be happy about that. He hadn’t killed one of Her Majesty’s soldiers after all. He’d killed a mercenary. Like Bond.

Oddly, the realisation wasn’t followed by any sort of emotion — no thankfulness that it wasn’t a soldier, no remorse that he’d taken out someone like Bond. Q stood with a groan and looked down at the body, his usually quick mind failing to come up with anything to think or say. It felt a little like the blank mindlessness that inevitably followed waking up.

Well, until he was bending over the kitchen counter to throw up on the dirty tiles.

Q heard movement behind him, and was instantly diverted from wondering if the kitchen sink had running water. He brought the shotgun back up and took a few steps back to keep anyone from sneaking up behind him. His hands shook a little as he brought the gun back up to his shoulders, but Q didn’t let it bother him. His traps had already taken out several people; Bond wouldn’t think him weak for a little bit of shakiness. And, of course, it wouldn’t affect his efficiency — these guns were powerful and hurtful. Even a poorly-aimed shot would bring someone down.

When he heard movement again, he turned too quickly to face the main doorway, an indefensible arch leading towards a dining room. He brought up the shotgun, but this time it _hurt_. He looked down and realised his clothing had gone wet and sticky and hot in a way that he just knew wasn’t good.

“Clear!” Bond’s voice called out.

 _Clear_. That was good. Q slid down the wall and tried to shout back, but taking a breath hurt. He licked his lips and wiped at the sour-bitter taste, only to have it replaced by the sharper salt of blood. He looked down at his hand and saw streaks and drops that came from his shirt.

A shadow made him grab for the shotgun, but it was Bond, moving fast and confidently, stalking across the kitchen. He let go of the rifle slung over his shoulder and nearly ran the last few steps, and crashed down to his knees beside Q.

“Oh, Christ,” he whispered, reaching out to touch Q’s body before his hand came up to Q’s face. “Q. Stay with me,” he ordered sharply.

“Oh,” Q said with some surprise, looking down at the blood. He’d been shot. Well, that was a gunshot scar done, then. If he didn’t die, everyone at MI6 would surely be impressed. “I don’t remember that happening.” He looked back up at Bond, frowning. “Are you all right? Is everything all right out there?”

“Don’t try to talk.” Bond took the gun from Q’s hands and gently pulled him away from the wall, to lie down on the dusty, dirty floor. He unzipped the jacket Q was wearing against the icy draughts blowing through the old house and pushed up his shirt. “Fuck. I need to go get a kit for this. You need to _not move_ , all right? Stay very still. You’re going to be fine.”

“It only hurts when I breathe, so it’s fine,” Q said with a choked laugh that ended up not being worth the movement in his chest. “Do I need the gun before you go? I got one of them,” he said, waving in the general direction of where he knew the body was. “I threw up on your floor, though. Sorry.”

“They’re dead. They’re all dead,” Bond said, brushing his hand over Q’s face. “Please, don’t move.” Then, hesitantly, he rose and ran out of the kitchen.

“Don’t move. Right.” Q decided that was probably a good idea, given that he was starting to feel the wound a little more. He hadn’t managed to see what gun the other guy had, but he really, really hoped it wasn’t a shotgun like his. But as much as he fully intended to ask Bond when he got back, his body decided passing out was a better idea.


	15. Chapter 15

**Monday, 18 February 2013**

“Did you miss the part where you’re _not_ supposed to get shot?”

The voice was familiar, faint as it was over the sound of hissing air and unfamiliar noises outside, but it wasn’t the voice that Q wanted to hear. He opened his eyes, fighting against the weight of his eyelids, to see the fuzzy shape of Alec sitting nearby, beyond a white plastic railing. A hospital bed railing, he recognised dimly.

“Gives me street cred,” Q replied groggily. Or, at least, he _thought_ he replied — though the way his tongue stuck in his exceptionally dry mouth might have interfered with actual clarity. He lost the battle with his eyelids and groaned at the betrayal. “Where am I?”

“Hospital. Recovery, actually. You and your bloody street cred,” Alec criticised, gingerly touching Q’s shoulder. When Q didn’t wince — really, Q couldn’t feel any pain at all — Alec gave his shoulder a pat. “So, I know this is bad timing and all, but I have some questions I need to ask you privately. Think you can focus for a few minutes?”

“Can try, but I’m no good right after I wake up,” he muttered. “Water first.”

Hospital rooms were usually well-equipped. There had to be a pitcher of water somewhere just out of Q’s ability to focus without glasses (which admittedly was a matter of centimetres). Alec moved away and returned just a few seconds later, to hold a straw to Q’s lips.

“I’m not entirely certain this counts as ‘awake’. You’re on the usual cocktail of painkillers. For all I know, you’re seeing butterflies,” Alec answered as he let Q drink his fill. Since he was leaning over, Q was able to see the dark shape of a shoulder holster under his jacket — strictly against regulations in most hospitals.

“Oh god, I’m going to be loopy, aren’t I?” Q said, his mouth now significantly less cottony. “No butterflies yet, but I’ll keep you informed.” He closed his eyes again — really, without his glasses, open eyes were a mere formality. He couldn’t figure out what had happened. The last thing he remembered clearly was getting ready to board a plane from America to London.

“Probably.” Alec put the water down with a faint click of the plastic cup. “You’ve completed your mission, Aidan. Once you've recovered, you can go home. But I need to know what” — he hesitated — “what do you want me to do with James?”

Q’s eyes flew open again. “Is he all right? Where is he?”

“He’s fine.” Alec gripped Q’s shoulder, keeping him on his back. “He’s fine, Aidan. He’s at the nearest hotel, and he’d bloody well better be sleeping. We were just a couple of hours behind you idiots. M convinced the American Air Force to get me back here, but I was still too late. Bloody idiots.”

“Not idiots, plural. He just wouldn’t listen.” Q took a deep breath — or tried to, before the pull of his injury prevented it. “Is he 007 now? Did it work?”

“Yes. It worked.” Alec’s hand tightened. “There are some details that have to be cleared up, but you’ve brought him back. That’s the big part. Thank you.”

Q nodded in relief. “That’s good. When he wakes up, can you tell him to come visit? I need my glasses.”

“Then you want to see him again? He’s... attached to you,” Alec said warily. He turned away, then turned back, now holding Q’s glasses. “Watch your IV line.”

Q reached for his glasses, or the fuzzy transparent and black smear that he assumed was his glasses. “Attached is good. I’m attached, too. He doesn’t have to stay at a hotel. My bed is nicer. And cleaner.” He paused to put his glasses on. “When can I have my bed back?”

“Soon. But you _want_ to see him? Because if you don’t — if there’s any hesitation — then make this a clean break. Please.” Alec’s hands tightened on the rail, and his face took on that blank, neutral look that Q had learned meant he was hiding everything deep inside; it was the same way Bond got when faced with an emotion he couldn’t readily process. “I can ask M to order him to leave you alone, if that’s what you want — though fuck if I know how he’ll take it.”

“What?” Q asked, straightening in alarm. Pain shot through him as things moved and shifted and pulled despite the painkillers. “No. He doesn’t get to leave me alone. I got on a plane to kill people for him. I got shot for him. I...” He swallowed, stopping himself before he could say anything foolish. Emotional declarations shouldn’t be made under the heavy influence of potent pharmaceuticals, he thought, and it wasn’t any of Alec’s damned business anyway.

“All right,” Alec answered soothingly. “No one’s going to keep him away, if that’s not what you want. Hell, I’m not sure I could, without shooting _him_.” He patted Q’s shoulder again before he leaned back in the visitor’s chair, looking more at ease. “What happened to ‘not gay’, if I may ask?”

Q relaxed and fell back against the pillows. It took him a minute to realise that Alec’s offer probably originated from the idea that Q had done what was necessary to get Bond back — not what he _wanted_. It would have been sweet, in a way, if it didn’t make him feel slightly dirty.

“I had boyfriends in uni. They were mean,” he explained groggily, losing the battle with his eyelids again. The water settled uncomfortably in his stomach, and it churned. He wondered how long it had been since he’d eaten. And if he _could_ eat even if he tried.  “I don’t feel very good.”

“You were shot, you bloody git. Now go back to sleep. When you wake up, James will probably be here.” Alec reached for the bedside table and picked up a Kindle.

“Good,” Q said with a yawn. “He’ll need the key to my flat.”

“You’re in Scotland. Bloody long walk to your flat,” Alec said, reaching out to pull Q’s glasses off. “Thank you for bringing him back to me, Aidan.”

“I hope you’re not mad that you have to share now,” Q chuckled, eyes closed. Even half-asleep, he felt that was important to make clear. “Sorry.”

“Share?” Alec huffed distantly. “You’re the one shagging him, not me. God, the very thought.”

“I know how to kill people now,” Q warned. And though Alec may have had a response, Q found himself fading back into unconsciousness before he could hear it.

 

~~~

 

The next time Q woke up, it was to the feel of warmth surrounding his hand. Familiar, callused, strong warmth. His fingers twitched, and the hands surrounding his tightened very, very carefully.

“Q?” Bond asked gently.

“Why do I keep falling asleep?” Q groaned, trying to get his eyes open. “This is _not_ good for me.”

“Because the doctors keep medicating you. Do you want me to take out your IVs?”

“Well, I don’t see butterflies, so maybe not yet.” Q opened his eyes and peered at the blur that was Bond. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. You got shot,” Bond accused, fingers twitching against Q’s hand. “Christ, I thought I’d lost you.”

“Lost? I stayed in the kitchen. Which is good, because that dirt tunnel was terrifying.” Q squinted at Bond, trying to remember everything that had happened. “Breckenridge?”

“Dead.” Bond took a deep breath as his fingers started rubbing little circles against the back of Q’s hand. “You know all this, but MI6 wants me. Alec — He’s here. He was here with you, watching you, just in case.”

“He said I was an idiot. I told him it wasn’t my fault you didn’t listen.” Q smiled, bringing his free hand up to Bond’s face. “007. You must be very excited.”

Bond leaned forward into Q’s touch. “You weren’t supposed to be hurt,” he said softly. “I’m never letting you out in the fucking field again.”

Q swallowed and closed his eyes. Now that Bond was here, he could ask the question and not have to worry about the reaction. “Um, James,” he started without opening his eyes. “I can’t really feel anything, but no one has said yet... Am I okay?”

After a moment, Q felt Bond’s lips brush against his forehead. “You’re fine. You’re going to be fine. They did a bit of surgery, but you’ll be back on your feet soon, with just a scar.”

“Oh, good,” Q said with a sigh. “When can we go home?”

Bond hissed in a breath, hand tightening painfully around Q’s fingers for an instant. He kissed Q’s forehead again and stayed there, lips pressed to skin, not breathing as long seconds ticked by. Then, he very quietly said, “Soon.”

“You _are_ going,” Q said, mustering whatever forcefulness he could draw on from under the fuzzy cloud of drugs. “If you don’t want me in the field, then you _have_ to go back to MI6, so I can go —”

“I’m going back.” Bond’s voice sounded rough, before he took another breath. He kissed Q’s forehead again and then tiredly sat back. “I’m going back, once you’re healthy enough to come with me, and then you’re never leaving London again.”

Q laughed, as much as he was able, trying not worry about the exhaustion in Bond’s voice. He didn’t sound very happy about going back to London — going _home_. He let his hand fall from Bond’s face to his shoulder. “I don’t know if, uh, you have anywhere. But I have a nice... Oh. Wait.” He peered apprehensively at Bond. “You’re not allergic to cats, are you?”

Bond stared at him. “Cats?”

“I have a cat. Well, M has my cat right now, but I wanted to get her back, but if you’re allergic... They have machines that filter air and eliminate cat dander, right?” Q stopped, thinking he might be getting ahead of himself. “Not that I’m saying you _have_ to, but if you _want_ to, my flat can be ready. I have a very nice bed,” he added for good measure.

“You —” Bond looked down with a long, slow exhale. “Alec said you — that this all wasn’t for your mission.”

“Of course not,” Q said, trying to project mildly offended rather than deeply concerned. “I did it for you. You... you still...” He cleared his throat. “Can I have some water?”

Immediately, Bond let go and turned away. Q took the opportunity to reach for his glasses, though he got tangled in the finger-clip and the monitoring lines.

“I’ll get that,” Bond scolded, catching Q’s hand and gently — very, very gently — setting it down on the blanket. He pulled the glasses off the bedside table, hesitated for a moment now that his hands were full, and finally used his teeth to unfold the arms of the glasses before he held them up to Q’s face, a bit awkwardly.

“Thank you,” Q said with some relief, though he wasn’t sure if this was going to be easier or harder now that he could meet Bond’s eyes. He adjusted his glasses and started to talk, only to have Bond hold the straw up to his mouth. He took a quick drink and gathered his courage. “You don’t have to, but I know you don’t have a place, and mine is nice if you’re not allergic to cats, and I have a big bed,” he finally said all in one breath.

“Q... I’m not easy to be around. Even Alec told me to get a bloody hotel, and he’s known me for twenty years.” He held the cup of water on Q’s lap, ready to offer it again, and rested his other hand on Q’s arm. “You don’t have to.”

“Well,” Q said thoughtfully. “Sex releases all sorts of happy neurochemicals. And you’ll be gone a lot on missions. And I’ll ignore you a lot when I’m building or coding. I’m sure it will balance out.”

Bond laughed, just a bit desperately. “If you want me gone, you’ll tell me?”

“I’m not very good at the brain-to-mouth filter when I’m mad,” Q said regretfully.

“Good.” Bond moved his free hand down to take hold of Q’s. “I’m not allergic to cats.”

“Oh good, because I rather like her.” Q let himself fall back into the pillows. “I don’t cook. And I leave bits and pieces of electronics everywhere that you might step on sometimes. I spend a lot of time on the computer. And my cat likes to draw blood.” He sighed. “But I’m nice, I think. And I risked my career and got shot for you, so that should give me a little bit of leeway. At least for awhile.”

“Q...” Bond leaned tiredly against the bed, making the frame creak. “I told them my employment was conditional. I want you running my ops.”

“Me?” Q asked disbelievingly. “What did they say?”

“M threatened to throw me in prison as a domestic terrorist. I told her we’d just blow up the prison and take down the government. She said something about trading me to the Russians. Eventually we came to an understanding.”

Q stared at Bond for a long time, trying to imagine that conversation: M stiff and annoyed, Bond sarcastic and cold. “Did she hug you?” he finally asked.

“She’s still in London. She said if you’re not functional in two weeks she’d have me killed on your behalf and give you my designation number instead.” Bond squeezed Q’s hand carefully. “I think she likes you.”

“Does that mean no more cupboard of a windowless office?” Q asked before he thought better of it. He flushed and looked at Bond. “Sorry.”

Bond quirked a brow, puzzled. “For what?”

“That was why I took the mission in the first place,” Q confessed, looking down at his hands, not knowing if it were time for this conversation or not. Now, he decided. That way, if Bond got angry and decided he didn’t want to stay with Q after all, at least it would be while he was still in a hospital bed; he’d be less likely to make a fool of himself by trying to chase Bond down. “Most of what I told you was true, you know. I’m a crap liar, so I stuck to the truth as much as I could. Details changed — AT&T instead of MI6 — but, for the most —”

“You’re a bloody _graduate student_?” Bond interrupted in horror. “Christ, just how old are you?”

Q broke out into laughter, then quit when it left him gasping and tearing up, holding his suddenly painful side. “I was, once. Graduated a while ago. Twenty-three, like I said, but a little ahead of the curve.”

Bond let out a breath and glared. “God, no wonder Alec threatened me if I came near you without your permission. You’re a puppy,” he said, reaching up to brush his fingertips over Q’s face. “And —” He cut off, eyes narrowing suspiciously. “ _What_ was why you took the mission?”

“Tiny windowless office,” Q said with a sigh, turning his head to nuzzle at Bond’s hand. “They said they’d promote me to the Technical Services Section.”

“That fucking bitch,” Bond snapped, his words at odds with his gentle touch. “She made it seem like a bloody concession.”

“She’s probably just getting back at us for whatever damage Lugosi caused while I was gone.”

“Lugosi?”

“The cat.”

Bond slowly started to laugh. It was rough and tired and real, without reservation. “You named your cat — your _female_ cat...” Shaking his head, he leaned over, touched Q’s chin to tip his face up, and kissed him gently, cracked lips and all. “If you ever let yourself get shot again, I’ll kill you myself,” he whispered.

“You know, these beds are made for people much larger than I am,” Q hinted, scooching forward.

“And you’re feeling no pain because of your IV drip.” Bond put a hand to his own side and added, “The most ancient doctor on the planet spent twenty minutes scolding me over this, and if I manage to open it _again_ , he might just keel over and die. Let’s wait until we’re both a bit recovered?”

“Not for anything fun,” Q corrected, wondering if the heat in his face was from the meds or a much less dignified blush. “I got shot. Perhaps some comfort is in order. It’s very comfy, if you want to fall asleep with me.”

Bond hesitated for all of five seconds. Then he moved the cup of water to the bedside table, dropped the rail on the near side, and carefully sat on the edge. He had to duck to get under the wire tethering Q’s left hand to the pulse-ox monitor. Then he gently laid down on his side and kissed Q’s temple. “Thank you.”

Q reached behind him to tug Bond’s arm over his chest, carefully avoiding the wound on his side. “Should I write a note, so Alec doesn’t get mad? Tell him this time the idea was mine?”

In a reversal of how they usually would cuddle — if a handful of days counted as ‘usually’ — Bond curled up against Q’s side, resting his head on the pillow beside Q’s. “Alec’s just — God, Q...” His hand pressed into Q’s chest, and his voice dropped. “I missed him. I missed England.”

“I’m glad everything worked out like this. It’s better than I thought it would be. And I didn’t want to live in Arizona. Who wants all that sunshine? It’s horrible.” Q sighed.

Bond kissed him again. “I would’ve come back there for you.”

“Really?” Q asked, wanting to believe it, but remembering how quickly things had turned tense and angry and dark.

Bond nodded, hair rustling on the pillow. “I told you, I’d teach you the business. If I didn’t die here, I was going to come back to be with you.”

“I would have stayed,” Q promised. “I think I’d make an excellent head of an army. Steal myself an island, run things from there, surrounded by computers and minions.”

“I’ll run ops in the field. You get us the contracts.” Bond laughed, sliding his hand around Q’s chest to hold him very, very gently. “We could rule the bloody world, only most of it’s not worth even visiting.”

“Ooh, maybe we could get a ship to go with our island,” Q said with a grin, eyes falling shut again. He yawned. “Then we could take our home with us wherever we went. So even if the place wasn’t worth visiting, it wouldn’t be horrible.”

“And you wouldn’t ever have to fly. I was Royal Navy, Special Boat Service. Any boat you like. I’ll let you pick. And you can even bring the cat.” Bond lifted his hand to touch Q’s face, tracing his fingertips over Q’s lips. “Thank you.”

Q pulled Bond closer, grinning. “You’re welcome.”

 

~~~

 

**Monday, 18 March 2013**

The rifle didn’t so much kick as slam into Alec’s body like a bloody lorry with no brakes, punching the air out of his lungs, even though he’d braced for it. He adjusted his stance slightly, grinned like a madman, and pulled the trigger again, leaning into the recoil.

“I knew you were holding out on me, you bastard. I should’ve broken into the bloody house and looted the armoury,” he said over his shoulder as he reloaded.

“You know where the damned key is,” James said without getting up from where he was sprawled on the bench behind Alec’s firing lane. He’d been lurking there for the last twenty minutes, having finished his qualification shoot.

Alec glanced back and rolled his eyes. No longer content to simply sprawl, James occupied the entire bench now, head pillowed on his quartermaster’s lap. Rather pointedly, Q was using his forehead as an armrest, and not looking up from the tablet computer in his hands.

It was a disgustingly domestic scene.

“Just because you fired the minimum number of rounds doesn’t mean you get the bloody weekend off,” Alec reminded him.

“Q, how many boxes of .45 did I fire when we were here Saturday night?” James asked, not opening his eyes.

“Four, and it would have been more if I hadn’t insisted that dinner was necessary at some point.” Q smiled smugly at his screen. “Honestly, my ears were starting to hurt, but requests for food get you every time.”

“You’re still too thin. I need to feed you more.”

Alec rolled his eyes and took aim again. “Is this how you’re going to be, from now on? The two of you? So much for the bloody legendary James Bond, mercenary. You’re practically picking out china patterns.”

“He sounds jealous. Doesn’t he?” James asked.

“Only because by ‘china patterns’, he actually means the components for my biometric trigger lock prototype. He _should_ be jealous,” Q answered.

“That’s because you’re brilliant.”

With his back turned to them, Alec gave himself the luxury of a grin. James was days away from his final qualifications. He had to repeat the psych evaluation for the third time, probably through no fault of his own. None of the Double O agents actually passed psych the first time through.

Alec’s hearing protectors had backwards-facing mics and noise cancelling circuitry, allowing him to eavesdrop as they started discussing the biometric trigger lock. James had always been a know-it-all, speaks-his-mind type of man, too intelligent for his own good. If he hadn’t gone into SBS, he probably would’ve been court martialled for legitimate reasons. But even a lone wolf like James needed _someone_ , and as close as Alec and James were, he’d always known it wouldn’t be him. Other than the whole not-gay thing (legitimate in Alec’s case, though thankfully not in Aidan’s), Alec and James were too similar. They’d kill each other in a week.

Aidan, though, was able to weather the worst of James’ tempers with barely a blink, and he kept pace with James’ most manic highs. He was one step ahead of James just often enough to always be a challenge. And against all odds and logic, he actually seemed to love James, no matter how much of a bastard he was.

Alec fired another several rounds before his shoulder, already strained from his earlier shooting, started to ache. Rubbing at what would probably turn into a light bruise later, he set the rifle down and turned to ask if James and Aidan wanted to go get coffee. Then, seeing what was happening on the bench, he turned back, pulling off his hearing protectors and shooting glasses.

“Just keep the trousers on until I’m out of here. God, you two _have_ a room. Why won’t you use it?”

Q didn’t look up at Alec from where he was bent over James, who was still lying with his head on Q’s lap. “Spiderman-esque movie kiss,” he said quietly and seemingly thoughtfully. “Yes, that’s new. And definitely a keeper.”

James chuckled, low and deep, and Alec resisted the urge to throw something at them. “Lock the door on your way out, will you, Alec?”

“Have Medical test you both for hormones,” Alec muttered, heading for the door. “We still on for coffee tomorrow morning?”

“You need to meet our cat,” James said.

“Though, as James found out, you may want to start slow. No sudden movements. Maybe even bring her an offering of some kind. Lugosi is... prickly,” Q said. “And if you’re early, don’t expect me to recognise you.”

Alec didn’t answer — not that either of them noticed. He let himself out of the firing range and used his security code to engage the electronic locks.

And M had doubted Alec’s plan to bring James back. He chuckled at the thought as he headed down the hall towards the locker room. There were a thousand ways Alec could’ve passed James the message about the review that had cleared his name, but none of them would’ve lured James back to London and MI6. He had no reason to trust the government — not after it had so badly betrayed him.

Sending him Aidan — Q — had been an act of trust. Q had been the perfect bait, with just enough knowledge and self-confidence to pull off a believable field mission aimed specifically at James’ every weakness: lust, overprotectiveness, even the need to shepherd someone who could be his equal, rather than commanding a subordinate. Alec might have felt bad for the two of them, because really they’d never stood a chance, except they were obviously deliriously happy together.

He smiled to himself, rather proud of how it had all worked out, in the end. James had Q, MI6 had 007, and Alec had his best friend.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Book cover for Mercenary by BootsnBlossoms and Kryptaria](https://archiveofourown.org/works/741506) by [catonspeed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/catonspeed/pseuds/catonspeed)




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